


Blue War Shields Inc.

by twowritehands



Category: Inception (2010), The Eagle | The Eagle of the Ninth - All Media Types
Genre: Daddy Issues, Hurt/Comfort, Long lost brothers reunite, Love/Hate, M/M, Mutual Pining, Office Romance, Origin Story, PTSD, UST, dark stuff tagged in relevant chapters, silly boys with guns, silly boys with money
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-04
Updated: 2017-05-01
Packaged: 2017-11-20 08:11:45
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 19
Words: 111,498
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/583170
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/twowritehands/pseuds/twowritehands
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The extraction point man, Arthur, and the sub security specialist, Esca, are the MacCunoval brothers who have deliberately been estranged for fifteen years. But when Mal Cobb dies, their separate worlds of false confidence come crashing down, sending them on a collision course towards one another. Also, true love tests each of their hearts.</p><p>Their reputations might not survive this upheaval, but maybe they, as a family, can.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Suicide

**Chapter One: When the Shit Hit the Fan, or When the World Caved In, or The Suicide**

Mal is dead and the police are blaming Dom, but Dom is blaming the dream, and Esca is the one who has to deal with it.

 _She was confused_ , Dom apparently told the questioning hotel staff right after it happened. _She got lost in the dream._ _We were working too much and she got lost. She thought the dream was real_ …

She left letters with a lawyer and there are declarations of her sanity given from three different psychologists, all of them swearing that Dom wanted her dead. Yet Dom is _not_ being held in custody as a suspect because the police find this “lost in a dream” excuse of his to be a perfectly reasonable explanation to all the facts, and they want to look into it.

They want to investigate Mal’s place of work, Blue War Shields Inc.

A.k.a: Esca’s baby.

Those dumbass witnesses at the hotel who spoke to Dom right after Mal jumped, who heard his mad rambling, his pathetic excuses, gave statements to the police and then turned around and told all to any and every nosey reporter who, despite having gotten Dom’s words second hand, wrote it all into their articles and now rumors are flying from every direction.

Horrendous rumors, shattering rumors, rumors that make Esca want to puke and die. All over the world, the revolting lies are in corporate lounge cafés, being traded over cubicle divides in offices, being bumped along in elevators or handed from person to person on the escalators, even brought up casually in first class plane cabins.

 _Oh, what do you think about Blue War Shields Inc. being under major investigation for killing one of their employees? Creepy, huh? I damn sure won’t let_ those _guys in_ my _head. HA!_

What really gets Esca, though, is that similar such comments are even in the households of the common man: men, women and children who have nothing to do with shared-dreaming:

 _Did you hear? That big sub-security training company convinced a woman to kill herself_!

Recently, Esca has been experiencing moments when he thinks he can’t breathe.

Ever since receiving the news of Mal’s death via a desperate phone call from Dom, Esca has been trying to handle it. He’s been trying to be sensitive, given that a woman is dead (an employee and a beloved friend no less) and he’s been managing it. Mostly.

But Esca is _under investigation_ , the secret inner workings of his company are being poked at, and prodded, and his good name being dragged through the mud in the process.

Esca MacCunoval has worked his ass off to build this company up and give it the good name it has. Ever since first learning about the PASIV technology, he sacrificed weekends and relationships through his twenties studying for his license to share dreams. He flipped burgers and mopped malls until he could afford his own PASIV, after which he spent entire nights plugged in and testing his theories.

Once he was sure he could militarize a subconscious, there came the era of the big high-pressure presentations and the countless interviews all to get backers to buy him facilities and _more_ PASIVS, and then after all of that ass kissing there finally came the real work: teaching the public masses how to protect themselves. In short, Esca forfeited a youth spent partying and having sex for this.

He made his first billion practically overnight, true, but that isn’t the solver of all problems like one would think. Now there’s marketing, research, billing, public relations, procedure, evolving almost monthly to stay relevant against those dream-crime fuckers called Extracters, etc… there’s a lot to keep up with because the thing about being the best is that you have to stay the best while everyone else in the world wants to take you down using whatever means necessary.

Like now. Mal’s death: was it a husband who murdered his wife in a fit of passion? Or was it suicide, a side effect to brain damage brought on by the big blue corporate giant?

Esca finds himself struggling to choose the lesser of two evils. He can take the blame and ruin his company, or he could ensure that Dom, his best friend, is sent to prison for murder.

It has already given Esca ulcers and it has only been a week. He is fighting with all he has, but it’s kicking his ass. How can he ruin Blue War Shields? How can he ruin a friend’s life by blaming a death on him?

It’s not fair. Esca never did anything to deserve this. He’s been a good guy, decent, respectable, hard-working. Why does life want to take everything from him at every opportunity?

First his family… now his friends. It hurts to think he’ll never get a surprise hug out of left feild from Mal again. He’ll never hear her French purr. He’ll never see her build impossible worlds with a glint in her eye. And Dom, he’ll never be the same carelessly kind, overly enthusiastic, goofily in love man who was perhaps the only other person on the planet who understood the potential of shared dreaming as much as Esca.

Whatever happened in limbo changed Dom into a quiet man always brooding on dark thoughts and now his wife is dead. Mal’s dead and her blue-eyed cheerful husband who insisted that Esca be his best man at their wedding and the godfather to their children is denying he had any hand in it, claiming that she’s dead because of limbo and they were in limbo because of their work for Esca.

After seven days of such accusations, Esca’s temper finally breaks and Dom is pressed bodily into his refrigerator and the front of his t-shirt is crinkled in Esca’s fists and Esca is hissing, “How DARE you drag my company into this!”

Alarmed at having been manhandled by someone nearly a foot shorter and much thinner than himself, Dom finally regains his senses and shoves his boss and best friend off, taking full use of his size advantage.

“WHY SHOULDN’T I?” Dom cries, voice cracking horribly and ringing around his homey kitchen. His blue eyes (perpetually blood shot as of last Tuesday) look wild and Esca takes another run at him, wanting to break the man down further than his wife’s suicide already has because the reputation of his life’s work is ruined ( _no one_ is going to hire a sub security company who has been rumored to be the cause of a suicide) but before he reaches his ex-employee/ex-best-friend, the third man in the kitchen--Blue War Shield’s lawyer--catches him and holds him off.

The lawyer blocks Esca from Dom, and Dom continues taunting him as he defends himself, “Why shouldn’t I tell them the truth, huh? We got lost doing _your_ experiments! She’s dead because of _you_!”

“No!” Esca screams, and he will literally make Dom bleed if he can just get at him, but the lawyer is strong and Esca’s too mad to properly break the man’s hold, “I never told you to try going that deep--you both got yourselves lost and FUCK IT if I’m going to let you get away with trying to bump all the blame of this off on me--You were her _husband_ , you must have seen the signs that she was unstable, but you didn’t do anything, so this is YOUR FAULT!”

“Fellas!” That is the lawyer, a thin dark haired man named Mr. Port, who is tired of all the hurtful yelling between the two men who last Monday had been best friends as well as employer/employee. But his attempt to stem the fight is feeble--because at Esca’s hurtful words, Dom breaks forward and attacks him, knocking Mr. Port out of the way and the two of them scuffle around the kitchen, bumping into the chairs and tables, upsetting a decorative vase and a cordless phone before two sets of hands are pulling them apart.

A fourth man, Esca's personal body guard, Tommy, has entered from the back deck. He had helpfully taken Dom's kids out to play so that they wouldn’t overhear what their father was discussing with his boss and lawyers, and now he’s back and helping Mr. Port pull the outraged men apart.

Tommy is bigger than Mr. Port (who is not that big but still bigger than Esca) and he very easily drags Esca from the kitchen, down the hall into the living room, murmuring, a British accent to match Esca's, “Come on, Mac, give him a break--he just lost the love of his life, alright?”

Dom, nursing a sore jaw where Esca had landed a hard elbow, straightens his clothes and hair and, ignoring the look from Mr. Port, wanders over to the glass back door to look out at his children. Mr. Port sighs and continues what he’d been saying before Esca lost it and attacked Dom.

Everything the dark haired lawyer says about the trail (legal jargon and technicalities, loop holes and plan B’s) seem to be coming to Dom from a far off place as he watches his children playing in the backyard. His daughter, Philippa, is running around in a pink dress, tall for her six years and beautiful.

His son, James, is crouching as he digs for a worm or something, and Dom can strangely hear James’ two year old jabbering more clearly through the distance and the glass between them than he can hear Mr. Port who is standing only a few feet from him and talking right at him.

“Dom,” Mr. Port says, attempting to get his attention. Dom has an ache in his chest and he thinks he needs to call out to his children so they’ll look at him. He’s suddenly worried he’s not really here and he needs his kids to look at him so he’ll know they can see him.

“Dom,” Mr. Port says again and outside, Dom’s babies both run to the neighboring yard (their grandmother’s backyard) and with his chance gone, Dom turns to his lawyer who is holding out plane tickets. Everything Mr. Port has been saying comes back to Dom right then, about how it doesn’t look good and how his best chance is to flee until they find better options.

“It’s now or never, Dom,” Mr. Port says.

Meanwhile, in the living room, Esca has been roughly shoved down onto the couch . He briefly considers kicking Tommy’s ass for manhandling him, or at the very least firing him, but before he can, his body gaurd sits across from him in a chair, gives him a hard look that manages to look menacing despite bright green eyes under boyish curls hanging down his forehead, “I know you’ve worked your arse off to make Blue War Shields the number one sub security company in the world, but you were out of line just now, Mac.”

Damn right he has. No one else but Esca built Blue Wars Shields. He built it slowly but surely _from nothing_ into the empire it is today and now in one fail swoop, a dark eyed, French beauty and her crazy-eyed, son of a bitch husband have ruined everything … Her death is bad enough, shattering enough, but on top of that Dom blames him. He _blames_ him.

So Esca’s choice is made for him. Blue War Sheilds it is, then. Dom can go fuck himself.

The loss of two such dear friends so abruptly is something considered to be devestating by most people. Esca MacCunoval, though, has actually experienced far worse; at least _this_ is a clean break. Therefore, he takes it surprisingly well. Hardly a flinch. (Upon wittinessing this Tommy will ponder the existence of a heart in his boss's firm, narrow chest.)

Without a word, Esca stands, straightens the black jacket of his obscenely nice suit, and leaves the house.

Dom comes striding down the hall, putting on his coat. Mr. Port is right behind him and Dom asks, “Where am I going?”

“France for now, but you shouldn’t stay there long. Red tape and paper work will keep you safe for only so long.”

“What will I do with myself?” Dom asks, desperate because he still can’t imagine life as it has to be now that she’s dead. Mr. Port shrugs, looks to Tommy for help.

Dom will need money, but fleeing the country with dream-crime allegations will mean the SDRA will have a warrant out for his arrest, so it’ll be hard to find work… the lawyer frowns in thought and recalls something that Esca had once told them in strictest confidence, and so turns to the kind-faced body guard and asks him,

“Mac’s got a brother in dream crime, doesn’t he?” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We have cast Tom Hiddleston as the personal body guard :)


	2. Arthur and Eames

 

**Chapter Two: The World of Dream Crime, or the Art of Mind Thievery, or the Baddies, or Arthur and Eames**

There is an ache in Arthur’s muscles. It’s technically imaginary, just residual discomfort from being beaten to death by a frenzied militarized subconscious about an hour ago. It’s Blue War Shields' fault. Arthur fucking _hates_ Blue War Shields.

In theory, stealing secrets is easy and beautiful, the perfect crime. Once upon a time, it was. In and out without a hitch, smoke on the wind, the scene of the crime in someone's mind, no evidence, no chase scene, and then you sold the secret to the highest bidder…

But in reality it’s not like that any more.

In reality there’s Blue War Shields Inc., the bane to every illegal dreamer’s existence.

And it’s just Arthur’s fucking luck that his little brother is the guy who OWNS it. Talk about sibling rivalry.

Arthur and his little brother don’t get on; the closest thing to contact between them is a shared grandmother in England whom they both visit--separately--for Christmas and Easter and her birthday. With no other family, it’s been radio silence between them for the last fifteen years.

Actually, that’s not true; they _have_ spoken once in the last decade, but it was over the phone and it was more of a fight than a conversation. The last thing Mac said before ending the call was:

“People pay me to keep thugs like you out of their heads and if _any one_ finds out I have _you_ for a brother, I’ll lose all my credibility! I’ll have absolutely _nothing_! Do you understand that I’m trying to do something decent and you’re making that harder for me than it needs to be? You’re a _major_ liability to Blue War Shields Inc. and I can’t have that.”

 _Click_.

Well, it’s not like Mac is making Arthur’s life any easier, either.

Grumbling, the point man tries to stretch in the driver's seat with no luck. He's driving down a highway, a very scenic route, towering green mountains and clear skies. Arthur often thinks he is made for glory because being surrounded by such breathtaking imagery is very soothing to him; but the regular encounters with phantoms of his only brother that try to kill him brutally everytime are not. Arthur has been considering retirement, but only in a pipe-dream kind of way. He isn't giving up until Eames does, their freidnship is based on a healthy competition with money, sex, and booze, and Arthur likes to win.

At the moment, his partner in crime is grumbling about what kind of spike he would like to stick Esca MacCunocval's head on for revenge, slurring his words in a rumbling English accent. Half of Arthur’s family is English, and he spent a lot of time in England as a kid, so he likes it when the conman doesn't a fake accent outside of a dream, though Arthur could never mention that in a hundred years because not even Eames knows where Arthur came from.

It's the only secret between them anymore.

Eames is ten years Arthur’s senior, yet childish. He’s overly comfortable and flirtatious with every atom in the cosmos, but in long-term relationships he’s distant and unfeeling. As a forger, he’s got more talent than he knows what to do with (and the parts he does know what to do with are flaunted like wares for sale).

He’s got a heart even bigger than his talent, but most of the time he’s sarcastic and short tempered. He’s intelligent, but forgetful. He’s broad in the shoulders, poorly dressed. He’s got a mouth full of crooked teeth, perfect lips. He’s got thick biceps covered in ink and surprisingly slender hands.

As they begin to cross the Su Di River, Arthur notices when Eames grows silent, tense, slumping down in the passenger seat and--yes, he’s holding his breath. Arthur breaks the sudden silence in the car, asking, “Seriously?”

Eames doesn’t answer and Arthur takes his foot off the gas. Eames releases his breath and says, “I’m fine. What’re you doing? Just keep going.”

But Arthur’s onto him now and is tired of driving anyway; he feels like having some fun. He ignores Eames’ obvious attempts to play it cool and pulls the car over, wearing his halo. He thumps Eames on the arm, “Switch with me, I’m sick of driving.”

As Arthur opens his door the wind and the passing cars provide plenty of noise. Eames unbuckles, but makes to slide over the gear shift instead of getting out and walking around the car like an adult. Arthur stays put and gives him a big smile, “Don’t feel like stretching your legs?”

“No,” the man answers with a beefy shrug.

“We’ve been driving for three hours.”

“Yes, through all kinds of solid ground, yet _you_ chose to stop us on the very _edge_ of the highest bridge on the planet!”

Chortling, Arthur cranes to look out Eames’ passenger side window, “We’re nowhere near the edge of it.”

“We’re close enough,” Eames says.

“Not close enough to the ground, though,” Arthur quips, “Oh, it’s miles away.”

“Is it? I hadn’t noticed,” Eames replies drily. He levels hardened green eyes on Arthur and says, “Well get out'iv the way if you want me to drive.”

Feeling like indulging a whim of immaturity, Arthur shuts his door and says, “I want you to open my door for me.” It’d be nothing short of hilarious to watch Eames cling to the side of the car as he makes his way around to the driver’s side door.

Eames’ jaw drops. “Are we twelve, darling?”

“Evidently we are, if we’re sliding from seat to seat instead of getting out of the vehicle because it’s _scarwy_.”

“Okay, fine,” Eames rarely gets this serious and angry and Arthur isn’t expecting it when he suddenly leans into Arthur and--yes, he’s grabbing the door handle and opening it. “There you _twat_ , I’ve opened your door for you. “

Arthur’s too distracted to be properly embarrassed that he hadn’t considered Eames opening the door from the inside, because Eames is still leaning over his lap to hold the door open against the strong wind and Eames’s personal space has overwhelmed and conquered Arthur’s, drowning him in the feeling of the hard muscles against his chest, the scent of cheap motel shampoo in his nose, a closer than ever visual of the fine hairs at the nape of Eames’ neck. Arthur can see pale freckles on the skin there.

Eames is still talking in that no-humor way of his, “Now get the fuck out of my way, so I can get us to civilization!”

Arthur obeys, carefully getting out the dangerous side of a car parked on the shoulder of a major highway. Eames slides over and when Arthur circles around the car, he has half a moment of guilt because-- _damn_ \--they _are_ extremely high up and the edge is frightfully close. He ignores the weakness in his knees and gets back into the car at a measured pace.

Eames pulls into traffic in his usual aggressive way, like he’s the only car on the road, and moments later the height of the bridge is behind them. Arthur digs around in the dash and comes up with some Chinese candy and Eames turns on the radio and they fall into conjugating their verbs and bashing the head of sub-secuirty in another language for a little while.

With Eames’ driving, they reach the train station early and are able to get right to their seats without the hang up of too many passengers in the aisles. Settling in, Arthur’s smart phone, which is in the pocket of his jacket slung over one arm, gives him the alert that there’s news he might be interested in. Eames beats him to it, digging it out of the pocket and checking it for him.

Arthur is too tired to care much about the news so settles in and let’s his eyes drop closed. Man, his muscles still ache. Must have been the serum, something had to be wrong with it if the residual pain is this lingering… they really need to find a half decent chemist, Jesus Christ.

Next to him, Eames is watching a video on Arthur’s phone, shifting excitedly like a kid hearing that school is canceled for a snow day. Arthur catches snippets of audio from the video that he can’t see and learns that Eames is this happy over a _suicide_ of all things.

Arthur raises an eyebrow, “What’s there to be happy about when a thirty five year old woman swan dives from a hotel window?”

“Nothing,” Eames instantly schools his face into something more appropriate for a funeral, straightens his spine and sniffs. The phone goes to the arm rest between them, “Except that Mac and his legal dream boxes seem to be the cause.”

Arthur sits up, suddenly much more attentive, and Eames misinterprets this to mean that Arthur is excited for the same reasons he is--for the same reasons all illegal dreamers are. Eames nods, a toothy, open-mouthed grin and says it like a promise, “Mac is _fucked_. There’s no way he’ll get out of this!”

“Slow down,” Arthur snatches up his phone and starts the video back at the beginning, but Eames takes the phone back from him and pockets it, eager to do the telling himself.

“The dead girl got lost in the dreams, apparently. Offed herself thinking she’d wake up,” Eames shrugs, waves a hand as Arthur nods and waves a hand as well, both of them brushing aside the topic of the biggest threat in their lives. “But the rub of it is that she got lost _on the clock,_ doing experiments, or sommat, _for Mac_!”

Whistling low, Arthur asks, “Has Mac made a statement yet?”

Eames takes the phone back out and checks it, as if there could have been breaking news in the last minute and he shakes his head, still grinning with barely suppressed joy, “Oh, I’d love to see the little bugger get out of this one! This’s… ah, whazzit called? Karma! ‘Bout bloody time all his fame and glory blew up in his face, innit?”

Snorting, Arthur looks out the window at the passengers milling around about to board the train and saying their goodbyes if there are any goodbyes to be said. He nods, “And it’s a nuclear explosion--think about it, if Mac’s suspected to be the cause of a suicide then he’s ruined. I mean, yeah people are stupid, but not stupid enough to pay someone to drive them crazy.”

“She wasn’t crazy,” Eames promptly informs, “Just lost.”

Arthur waves a hand again, tomato/tomahto, and takes his phone from Eames once and for all, to check if he has any messages. Eames, having started digging for the last of the Chinese candy, doesn't notice, and Arthur idly flips the phone in his hand, wondering what he expected to find waiting for him on it. Messages or missed calls or both, but from whom?

Mac?

Ha.

|           |           |           |

Needing to get away from his office for a bit, Esca speeds down a road along the coast. The wind, the salty air, the pull of the engine as he shifts and drifts elegantly through the curves…is not really helping him take his mind from any of it. How could it? His whole fucking life is crumbling and who can he talk to about it?

No one. He has no one. Again.

How had he ever let himself believe that he would never be alone again?

The ring of his cell pulls him out of his head and he checks the screen and sees that it is one of his assistants calling.

“Mac, I have Peter Browning from Fischer-Morrow on the line,” she says. “He wants to speak with you directly.”

Esca swears and downshifts, pulls his sports car over at a scenic view stop and kills the engine. The sounds of the ocean take over for the roar in his ears of 80mph wind. It’s a sunny day, it would be beautiful if all the little cracks in Esca’s life weren’t lengthening and widening and opening up to swallow him whole. Just like when he was fourteen.

A silver car pulls up beside him, and through the window Esca gives Tommy a short salute to let him know everything’s fine, even though he feels like he can’t breathe again. Tommy gives the wave back and does not get out of the car, settles in to watch from here and wait. “Did he say what it’s about?” Esca asks the girl on the phone.

“No,” she answers.

Esca takes a slow deep breath through his nose. Fischer-Morrow is a multi-billion dollar energy conglomerate that is about to change ownership from a dying father to his son. Blue War Shields Inc. was hired only a few weeks ago to train this son like they trained the rest of the company.

“Okay,” he says when he’s ready and then the assistant puts him through.

“Peter!” Esca says brightly. “Good to hear from you! I was just telling my assistant this morning to call you and let you know that _I_ will _personally_ be training your godson at our appointment--“

“Mac,” Peter Browning cuts in. “We’re letting you go.”

“No, no, no,” Esca says into his phone, barely holding his panic at bay. He scrambles out of his car and starts pacing. He tries to keep a smile in his voice, a reassurance. “Mr. Browning, you’re making a mistake. Blue War Shields will take care of your secrets--you have _nothing_ to worry about!”

“Sorry, Mr. MacCunoval,” Mr. Browning replies, “Robert’s mind is delicate enough after all he’s been through. We just can’t take the risks. We’re going to hire Mr. Charles to train him.”

The name of Esca’s one and only rival in the business--some fucker copycat--makes Esca’s stomach clench. “ _Mr_. _Charles_!” he cries. “Peter, no. Sealed Secrets Security offers _discount_ sub security, for God’s sake--you can’t be serious? Please, don’t make hasty decisions. I swear to you, Blue War Shields is as trustworthy and safe as ever. Think of all that we’ve done together! You can’t just suddenly believe that I’m a danger to you. Please, I’ll--“

“Don’t grovel, Mac. It’s pathetic,” with that, Browning hangs up and Esca is left without his biggest client. He stares at his phone for a moment and for half a second wants to hurl it into the ocean with a throat-ripping scream of rage--but Esca has never been anything if not strictly in control of himself.

The plastic phone creaks as he squeezes it but then he pockets it and with shaking fingers opens his car door, climbs back in to slump forward on the wheel. He tries to remember how to keep breathing.

|           |           |           |

There is a message on Arthur’s phone now. But it’s from Eames, not Mac.

Arthur doesn’t know why he actually expects his brother to call, but he is legitimately disappointed to see that the text if from the forger instead of the shield. The suicide stuff is all over the news and it doesn’t take a genius to realize that it’s the end of the big blue giant. Surely Mac’s not taking it well? Surely he needs someone to talk to?

But the very last person a man is going to call when his life is falling apart is his estranged big brother and it’s stupid to think otherwise.

Goddammit, though, Mac could _at least_ call Arthur and start flinging accusations at him that _he_ was somehow behind Mal’s death! It would be a _reasonable_ assumption; it’s not like Arthur, given his career choice, doesn’t have motive to destroy Blue War Shields Inc. And there’s no better way to do that than a public tragedy to plant suspicion in the public’s mind.

Arthur only _wishes_ he was genius enough to have thought of it first.

Alas, the text is from Eames, and Arthur ignores it for now because sitting across from him in this shitty bar that is loud with the sound of Saturday night, is someone unbelievable, some kind of miracle--but also something like the messenger that Arthur is not supposed to kill.

It’s Dominic Cobb, the dead girl’s husband--well, widower; Mac’s employee.

Arthur wouldn’t be surprised if Mac sent him here. Wouldn’t be surprised if Mac wasn’t mourning at all, was simply continuing to be a ruthless billionaire business man. A lab accident resulting in an employee’s death and her husband gets fired for it--it’s the perfect cover for a mole sent in to learn how extractors are getting around the sub security.

Arthur would like to send Cobb back in pieces; it wouldn’t be the first Blue War Shields mole Arthur’s killed. It happens with disturbing frequency, seems to be the only way Mac cares for communicating with his brother. Well, if that’s the way he wants to do it.

Cobb had started drinking right when he sat down and he hasn’t stopped. He hasn’t shut up talking, either. With his hand closed in a white knuckle grip on his bottle, Arthur listens to Cobb talk about his skewed impression of Mac’s big brother (which he apparently got from all the stories Mac told about growing up in Michigan and then England.) Apparently, Dom had imagined Arthur MacCunovul as this big, scary, dangerous murderer. Maybe because of all the dead moles.

“But look at you. Same ears, same intense eyes, same taste in suits--HA! It’s like the two of you are still as close as you used to be.”

The point man finds it very interesting to learn that he is spoken of regularly, considering he is _such_ a liability--but Arthur knows that his brother is a share-all when it comes to friends, and wouldn’t leave out a living brother when asked. The fact that Cobb knows so much about the MacCunoval brothers bespeaks a deep loyalty that must have been there between the pair of legit-dreamers, so Arthur’s curious as to why the man is sitting here blaming it all on Mac right now.

“Kept encouraging us to go deeper, you know? Kept pushing for the newest discovery in shared dreaming. Greedy little bastard, he wanted to make sure he beat everyone to the patent on it. Not rich enough. Mother _fucking_ asshole…”

Arthur’s getting mad, but he's too drunk to go over the edge about it. (Eames teases him relentlessly on this front, how soft and save-the-kitties Arthur gets when he’s buzzed. _Better than starting brawls though, Mr. Eames_ , Arthur would say.) He looks again at his phone. There’s another message. Eames will panic if Arthur doesn’t answer after three.

Cobb takes a deep pull on the bottle in his hands. “I know you guys don’t really get along anymore ever since--well...Esca told me what happened to you.”

Arthur’s dark eyes lift from his phone to the ex-everything (ex-shield, ex-husband, -father, -friend) and in them the look of murder, buzzed or not. _If this fucking pretty boy is going to start talking about all of that shit, then he’s dead on principle_. Cobb is too drunk to notice, and lucky for him he is too drunk to stay on the dangerous topic as well.

Flattening his thick blond hair, Cobb looks around at the smoky, smelly room.  “Christ, this reality _blows_ , doesn’t it? Why’s this happening to me? I just want to be home with my kids. That’s all I was ever trying to do when I--and now I need your help, Art, and they say you can help me.”

“ _Don’t_ call me Art,” Arthur says darkly. Art was a kid who painted his face with mud and played like he was a druid. That boy died a long time ago. Cobb looks confused and gives a half-shrug, _whatever, fine_.

“My point is, I don’t have a job or a life anymore,” Cobb says, “and I’m good at what I do. Or what I _used_ to do. Dreaming. I can build--anything. And I’m a fast learner, teach me anything. Please, just let me work with you. I need money.”

Arthur leans back, crosses his arms over his crisp vest and shirt, and he considers.

Cobb looks like a wreck. If Arthur ever had to describe a man at the end of his rope, he’d say it’s someone with unwashed hair, bloodshot eyes, pale skin, and shaky hands, someone who never stops moving, not ever--fingers tapping over the worn wood of the table, eyes shifting hectically all around, chest heaving like he’s just run a mile (more like something is inside that wants to break out and scream and kill.)

This man is only held together by the promise of tomorrow, and his assumption that Arthur, as Mac’s badass big brother, can fix things.

The man just showed up in Arthur’s life two hours ago, with pleas for help, and frankly, Arthur would have just killed the incredible nuisance if Cobb hadn’t started talking fast---Esca this and Esca that, Esca, Esca, Esca.

It’s been so long since Arthur’s heard anyone use his little brother’s first name, he can’t turn Cobb away. He wants to grill this man on Esca’s life and his general happiness and other such big brother questions--but he can’t because he doesn’t want to give Cobb that leverage, the leverage that he _cares_.

Arthur can say no and let the guy fall apart in a ditch somewhere--in fact, he feels the right to do so--but he can’t deny how useful an ex-shield will be on the job. He clicks his teeth, drawing out the wait. On the table between them, Arthur’s phone illuminates a third time.

_Where the fuck are you?_

_Alive,_ he finally responds.

_Good. Where?_

Arthur texts his exact position down to the booth he’s sitting in, then adds, _Stay. Coming to you. I got us an architect._

_Excellent._

“You’re in,” he says to Cobb.

“I’m in?”

“ _Yeah_ ,” Arthur says with slight exasperation. Cobb rolls his lips in a silent promise not to keep repeating things back in question form like that.

“Okay, so what’s our first order of business--“

“First,” Arthur cuts in sharp and deadly, “you remember a couple of things. One, my name is _Arthur_. Not Art. _Arthur_. And _just_ Arthur too. No one knows my last name and no one has to know. You tell anyone I’m a MacCunoval, or that I have a brother or how you know me, and I’ll kill you.”

Cobb swallows and nods. “Completely understand. So… we… just… happened to meet.”

“Exactly. Not that anyone’s going to ask; we don’t get friendly in this business. Last thing is, I’m not bending over backwards to keep your ass alive. Take care of your own fucking skin. This isn’t a babysitting service.”

Cobb nods curtly. “Got it, yeah.”


	3. Aquila

**Chapter Three:** **A Stroke of Good Luck, or Salvation, or Thumbs Up, or Aquila**

Esca has not been sleeping well.

Currently, he is not doing a great job of breathing, either.

Tommy shoves a brown bag into his hand and tells him to breath into it and that helps. Someone else continues putting foundation on his face and yet even more people are running around with headsets and clipboards and someone is telling him they’ll be live in five.

CNN will be live in five minutes and Esca MacCunoval, founder, owner, and CEO of a multi-billion dollar sub security company will answer questions in front of the world about the suicide of Mallorie Cobb and the allegations of Blue War Shields’ involvement in her decline in sanity.

In a lot of ways, this has been what Esca’s been waiting for ever since the papers started dragging his name into Mal’s death—a chance to set it all straight and defend himself—but also he feels that it’s all going to be kind of pointless. A black spot on a reputation will never go away; a good name once ruined is ruined forever.

Something in Esca hardens just then and he knows in his core that he won’t let them take his dignity—no matter what they say. He will do as he has always done and maintain a sense of honor and pride. His employee is dead, true. But he did nothing wrong, this he knows as surely as he knows his name, and he clings to that.

He will not play their games.

|           |           |           |

“Come on, Marcus, you’re doing great. Five more reps for me, okay?” the physical therapist requests kindly.

On his back on the floor of the dressing room, Marcus Aquila is in enough pain to blur his vision. His leg is shaking from the exertion of lifting it repeatedly with a weight on his ankle and he wants to stop but he pushes on and lifts his leg five more times.

He drops his arm over his eyes as he receives praise from the therapist, his assistant, and his uncle; Marcus never wanted an audience for this, but he simply could not deny CNN when they asked to interview him about leaving his command in the army to take command of his father’s empire. Unfortunately, he can not simply ignore a strict physical rehabilitation routine either, so he’s compromising by exercising in the CNN dressing room.

After a brief rest, Marcus gets to his feet with the help of his therapist and limps over to the massage table that has been brought in for him. He strips his sweats and an assistant hands him a towel which he tucks around his waist before slipping out of his boxer briefs and laying on the table.

Nearby, Marcus’ white haired uncle is in a backstage chair, watching a flat screen where CNN is playing a live interview about the Blue War Shields scandal. Uncle’s voice is placid, “Have you been paying attention to this, Marcus?” he asks.

“I was distracted, Uncle,” Marcus smirks as oiled hands start massaging his mangled thigh. “What is it?”

“It’s a damn shame,” is Uncle’s reply. “It’s the chief of the Shared Dream Regulation Agency and two world renowned psychologists against only MacCunoval.”

“Who?”

“Blue War Shields Inc.”

“Oh, right.”

“It’s never a fair fight against those Shared Dream Regulation Officers. _Never_. If those fellas have it their way, _no one_ with less than twin doctorates in psychology and neurology will have a PASIV. They automatically fault MacCunoval just for making his fortune with the technology outside the medical field!”

“Hmmmm,” is all Marcus says because his jaw is clenched in pain from oiled fingers kneading deep into the scar tissue on his leg. Uncle falls quiet and Marcus can hear the television now, the rapid-fire questions from the dream chief and the psychologists—the fierce, proud answers can only be MacCunoval, though Marcus has his eyes shut against the sharp edge of pain so he can’t see the screen.

After several minutes, Marcus is grimacing more from what he’s hearing on the screen than what his masseuse is doing. They’re cutting the guy down gladiator style, no mercy but noticeably conscious that others are watching for entertainment so it must be drawn out.

God help him, though, MacCunoval doesn’t seem to be backing down or wearing out; he’s going out with more dignity than anyone else in his position has ever done.

“I like him,” Uncle’s smiling voice is mildly amused. Without opening his eyes, Marcus smiles; of course his uncle likes him. MacCunoval was a self-made billionaire at the age of twenty four, which beats Uncle, who made his first billion in his thirties. Beyond that, MacCunoval is clearly a proud man, which is Uncle’s favorite among the seven deadly sins. “I feel bad for him, truly I do. He’ll lose it all after this.”

Marcus opens his eyes and looks around at the flat screen in the corner. A surprisingly small man in a very good suit has a spark in his eyes and a hard set to his jaw. Marcus sits up now that the masseuse is finished, and wipes the oil from his leg. “Surely there is something we can do.”

“Hmph,” is Uncle’s noncommittal reply--he’s too riveted to the screen to answer properly. Marcus gets dressed in a suit that was chosen for him and ponders his options. He knows there’s something he can do. He is the owner and soon to be CEO of Eagle Standard Pharmaceuticals, the very company credited as the _creator_ of SomNiCin™ dreaming serum, without which there is no shared dreaming in the first place. Surely he can do something.

He’s still pondering this as they dab make up on his face and lead him to his stage.

|           |           |           |

"Hey, Tom, give me a minute, yeah?"

The man sticks in his curly haired head for a check of the small room and then nods, lets Esca in and doesn't follow him. Safe and alone in his dressing room, Esca strips his jacket and tie, his shirt, and chugs a water bottle, still feeling hardened down to his core and mad enough to hurt someone. He gave it his all out there, made clear his best principles, recited his morality, defended himself and yet they had no mercy. The interview is over and Esca is still staring down the barrel of the gun… lying flat on his back with a blade poised above his heart…

At this point, death is welcome.

He has just thrown up a few times in the loo and is upending the water bottle on his face when there’s a knock. He makes no reply and a moment later, the door opens. In comes a stranger with Tom at his elbow. He’s old, white in the hair with a long, kind face of wrinkles and peppery beard. He’s in a nice suit, Esca notices.

“Who are you?”

The smile is serene, and the voice is deep and does not seem to be in a hurry. “I’m Luke Aquila, Marcus’s uncle.” The man extends a hand.

Esca has no idea who _Marcus_ is and why this man should think he does. Luke Aquila frowns and then looks to the television, which is switched off in its corner. He waves to it, “Have you not been watching?”

“No, I--“ Esca can’t say he’s been puking or panicking or plotting revenge, so he stops the sentence there and says nothing. Luke Aquila looks like he does not need the rest of it, however. He looks highly amused even as he moves to turn on the television; it displays CNN.

“Well,” the man says unruffled as he turns back to Esca. He has a playfully noble expression as he lifts his chin and says, “The house of Aquila is interested in you.”

“Aquila--wait a minute,” Esca is finally recognizing the name. “You’re Eagle Standard Pharmaceuticals!”

“My brother was first, my nephew is now. I have been simply—well… acting as a regent, if you will.”

Esca frowns with a glance at Tommy, attempting to figure out why this man speaks in such archaic words and phrases. “Come again?”

“Ah,” Mr. Aquila moves to turn up the volume and implores him to listen. Esca pays attention to a recap of an interview that took place after his live slaughter. This one is infinitely friendlier, however. It’s more like old friends catching up than a real interview. The interviewee is Marcus F. Aquila, Eagle Standard inheritor, ex-solider and soon to be successor of Luke as the CEO.

The part that Luke has silenced Esca for is Marcus’s surprising answer to the question, _what will be your first move_?

“Well, I’m interested in hiring Blue War Shields to help me and my people protect ourselves--I know, I know, what’s recently happened is what’s making you look at me like that. But personally, I don’t see how that has anything to do with Blue War Shields. They’ve been doing spectacular work for years and I don’t think it’s fair to condemn them over one outside accident. So, yeah, I’m going to hire them.”

Esca’s mouth is open and he’s staring. Luke turns the volume back down and stands there, watches him with a grin. After a moment, he sighs, grips Esca’s elbow and says, “Why don’t you’re people call mine and we’ll set up an appointment, hm?” and with that, he’s gone.

|           |           |           |

Leaving the fiery young man looking somewhat gob-smacked with his queitly astonished bodygaurd, Luke Aquila is amused and grinning happily when he answers his phone. “Ah, Claude. I wasn’t expecting to hear from you.”

“Lou, you have a problem.”

“I wouldn’t call it a problem. Perhaps it’s risky, but nothing we can’t handle. The publicity from linking our name in a positive way to MacCunoval’s media storm is nothing short of genius—free, positive publicity. I would think you would be pleased with--“

“I’m not talking about your nephew, Lou,” the man cut in, “and frankly I have no idea what you’re talking about and as your publicist that worries me, but I’ll deal with it later because what _I’m_ talking about is a whole shipment of your SomNiCin compound being misplaced.”

“Oh.” Luke stops walking and sighs heavily, feelings of happiness evaporating. Times like these, the aged gentleman is all too happy to be retiring in a few weeks. “Why am I hearing about this from you?" he looks around for his assistants but sees none of them. "Where did we lose it?”

“China. It didn’t even get on the goddamn plane.”

“Sounds like it’s just a mistake in the warehouse; recheck inventory.”

“No need, listen. The driver of the number nine truck didn’t show up so they got a replacement. Some American bastard called Artie, had his CDLs, said Ann called him in; didn’t question it. Why should they? But now he’s disappeared and the truck was found empty and no one has even heard of the guy.”

“The truck was _empty_? How did they know the codes to open the doors?"

"How do you think?" Claude said, confirming Luke's worry that extractors must have gotten to someone to get the pass codes. "We've already got a team out to change all security systems."

"Have we contacted the SDRA?”

“Of course.”

“And they haven’t any leads?”

“Do they ever?”

Luke presses on his eyes, sighing, “How bad is this?"

"This much of a dangerous drug lost, reputation lost. Reputation lost, all lost."

"When can we expect this to go public?"

“I'm pulling some strings so it may never, but if anyone asks it’s—“

“A minor situation, but we have everything in hand.” Luke says it along with his publicist, and then Claude demands to know what Marcus has done, but instead of answering, Luke ends the call. Suddenly, Marcus’ heavy hand grips his shoulder. He looks every bit like his father did at that age, minus the cane he leans on.

“Hey, Uncle, you aren’t mad, are you? Maybe I should have ran it by you first, but I thought it would be good publ—“

“It was unexpected but pure genius, my boy," Luke answers languidly, "and we’ve already made the appointment with MacCunoval, but, unfortunately, we have a situation in China.” He fills him in and then coaches him on how to answer any questions about it.

“It’s a minor situation,” they chime together, “but we have everything in hand.”


	4. Mr. Cobb

  **Chapter Four: Breaking Bad, or Just the Beginning, or Mr. Cobb**

Cobb is happy to tell Arthur anything he wants to know about Esca. The point man tries at first to be nonchalant about it, ask his questions here and there and get only snippets of what he wants to know to be put together into a bigger picture later.

Esca lives in a beach condo.

He’s single.

Knows a good suit.

This is what Arthur does for a living, gathering information on his targets piece by piece. But Cobb is good—much better than Arthur initially gave him credit for—and says flat out one day,

“Why don’t you just ask me all that you really want to know about your little brother?”

After that, Arthur starts getting more than just random facts, but wholes stories. The time, years ago when Dom and Mal weren’t even dating yet, when Esca helped Mal to make Cobb jealous by kissing her whenever he was near. The time Esca got into it with a referee at a Knicks game—but that one Arthur already knew a little about because he read about it in the tabloids. Esca _ballroom dances_ because apparently some past boyfriend of his was a dance instructor or something.

Arthur can’t get enough, wants to know everything. He hasn’t realized how much he has really been missing until now, as he’s hearing stories of his brother being a grown man. What happened to the sharp-eyed, energetic kid who spent hours with Arthur in the woods, played like they were tribesmen rebelling against the invading Romans?

He grew up, apparently. And Arthur wasn’t there for it.

|           |           |           |

Even though Arthur smells a mole, Eames sees a lump of clay in Dominic Cobb.

It’s been nearly ten years since Eames has had to break someone into the life, but he thinks this new architect will be fun—especially with the way it all has Arthur tense like a bow string, ready to kill the man at the first hint that he is a double-agent. If there’s anything Eames loves to see more than mounds of cash it is Arthur on the scent.

It was that killer instinct Eames found inside the burn-out in suburbia, saved with no small amount of hard work on his part, thank you very much. If anyone alive today could only _see_ how far Arthur has come, then they would know that Eames doesn’t just twiddle his thumbs.

Recognizing potential is his super power, really; forging just passes the time.

 _Alas_ , he thinks dramatically, as he strolls down a Parisian street that doesn’t exist; the first dream shared with the new boy, _this one isn’t going to be half as much fun breaking in as Arthur has been, after all._ Cobb already knows the basics of dreaming and then some. Boring.

It isn’t fun unless you get to see their eyes light up with the first promise of sharing a dream.

“Well?” Cobb asks nervously, fidgeting as he waits for final judgment on his work.

Eames scratches the back of his neck and then pockets his hands with a shrug. “Rubbish.”

Shoulders drop, face slackens, “What’s wrong with it?”

“City’s fine,” Arthur says with a smirk, still craning his neck to admire the buildings. “He means you.”

“Me?”

“Rule one, whatever you do in life, you have to sell it,” Eames recites.

Cobb huffs, and one side of his mouth lifts in a boyish smile that takes years off. “Well, alright. But I mean, I’m only selling to you guys right? It’s not like I’ll actually be in the dream with the mark.”

“Do you want to be? We need an extractor. Feel like testing your wings, mate?”

Arthur turns casually and drops a wink at the forger, thanking him for laying the mole trap.

This is the moment of truth. If Cobb weasels out of the dream, then he’s following protocol, and Arthur will take care of it splendidly.

“I thought that’s what you were going to do?” the architect asks.

“Only when it’s a two man operation,” Eames says.

“And he’s too chicken shit to be point,” Arthur teases mildly with a motion to Eames.

“Don’t care to be shot at,” the Brit deflects off-handedly, “And anyway, do you truly want to rely on me to save your lives?”

“I wouldn’t,” Cobb says honestly. “In fact, I wouldn’t even trust you to share the secrets after you stole them….” He gets a far off look in his eye like he is considering the best ways to ensure the job gets done to his satisfaction. “Okay. Yeah, extraction; show me.”

Pleased, Eames smiles at Arthur, who rolls his eyes—but then, Arthur doesn’t trust easily. The three of them are standing in a circle of tentative agreement when the timer goes off and they awake in their chairs.

“Well, I can already tell you, as an ex-shield I know pretty much all the tricks,” Cobb says. “Forging and killing I’ll leave up to you guys, but the rest of it, the common cold for example, I can do that, easy.“

Eames chuckles; alive with the possibilities of having a second protégée who is eager to please. “What’s this common cold stuff?”

“The snapshot gambit,” Cobb answers. “In the lab that’s what we called it because there’s no cure.”

“Ha,” Eames bubbles at the insight into Blue War Shield’s office space; mole or no, he likes this Cobb; if he would just smile more Eames would be in serious trouble. “What a fitting title. Give it a go?”

“Subject?” Cobb asks.

“Arthur.” Eames says with a devilish twinkle in his smile.

“What?” the point man barks and shakes his head. “No.”

“Come on, mate, what've you to hide from me? I just want to see how he does,” Eames says, playing innocent. “Please, Arthur, be a gem? Hm?”

“Fine,” Arthur growls.

“Then you know what to do, Cobb. Build a blank space dream and let Arthur fill it naturally, and we’ll see what there is to see in his head.”

|           |           |           |

Arthur doesn’t share wild dream space very often; just safer that way. The last time anyone got a raw glimpse of his mind like this was nearly ten years ago, when he’d recklessly stuck the needle in his arm and hit the plunger before the AWOL soldier could finish saying _stolen dream-share technology_.

He had let Eames see far too much in that dream, but luckily that was before any of it became relevant. The forger would have the whole scoop by now if Arthur hadn’t spent the last decade laying down false trails of evidence to mislead him, to keep his privacy, to keep the past in the past where it belongs. The conclusion that Eames has long since reached about him is close enough to the truth for the astute forger to believe it, but far enough for Arthur to be comfortable. Eames thinks Arthur is an only child with father issues who developed a serious drug problem when his mother died while he was in high school.

But Cobb…now this is a problem; having been best friends with Esca, Cobb probably already knows the truth, the real truth, or at least, he knows enough from Esca’s side of things to put more together than Eames ever has… so there will be no chance of hiding any of it from him.

So maybe it’s time to stop hiding it from Eames, too.

As the drugs pulse into his arm, Arthur lets his eyes rolls back into his head, and he let’s go.

This isn’t going to be pretty….

They are standing in the woods. It is raining, or has been; heavy drops still leak out of the trees onto their heads. Behind them on the muddy ground are two sets of footprints. There’s a fire pit, full of rain-soaked ash. Beside it, behind their legs is a large fallen, three-pronged tree limb that makes for a bench. On its weather-beaten face are carved letters: A and E but also ROMANS BEWARE and a few wonky shapes that don’t mean anything.

Arthur’s chest restricts painfully. He hasn’t been here in years. He forgot about the initials. He glances at Eames, who has seen the letters and is now smiling. Arthur’s heart thuds loudly when he realizes the unfortunate coincidence of A and E and what it looks like. He opens his mouth to say that nothing present day has translated into this dream-space, but he closes his lips instantly because that’ll ruin the lesson.

“All right,” the forger says, having a look around the rest of the private forest without even attempting to hide his glee. “What can you tell us about the subject, Cobb?”

“Not much…” the new extractor says dubiously, thumping the toe of his shoe into the crooked E on the dead branch. He shoots Arthur a knowing smile, which the man ignores. Arthur is looking to Eames to see what the forger thinks about stepping into his head and finding trees for the second time.

“You are a deep well, mate,” is all Eames can say to him, craning to look at the leafy top branches. Arthur knows he has spotted the two things he was expecting to see—the dagger and the pearls--but he’s not pointing them out because he wants to see if Cobb will notice. “Told you it would be a challenge, Cobb; let’s see how you do.”

“Well, the idea is to take what you can and run with it, right? Wing it?”

“You need at least one secret,” Eames teaches, “a good extractor can exchange one meaningless private fact for business secrets worth millions.”

Cobb nods and begins pacing around the little camp sight. Arthur nervously watches Eames—he wants the forger to dig around, too, find what he always missed and really figure this stuff out, but he is also glad the man isn’t lifting a finger to decipher any clues.

The first thing Cobb discovers is the dagger thrown point-first into the mud beside the carvings in the fallen tree limb. He pulls it up, inspects the intricate markings on the bone-handle with a frown. He glances at Arthur with an apologetic wince (so he does know at least some of it from Esca); then presents it to Eames.

“This thing looks like an antique. That and the roman sign,” he thumps the branch again, “I’d say this kid was really into history…A and E both, probably. They were close like that,” Cobb speculates, motioning to the set of footprints matching stride through the woods. “Grew up together, went everywhere together, made special secret clubs.”

Arthur detects the shift in Eames as the forger accepts this new promising information. Both outsiders look to the subject in question. Without making eye contact, Arthur grunts to let them know they aren’t wrong. Eames makes a pleased sound; these camp site clues are far more personal than the complete wilderness he had first glimpsed years ago.

Cobb catches sight of something on a low hanging branch and his eyes narrow. “Huh…” he says with intrigue, laying the dagger on the log as he goes over it. The blade is left spinning lazily, and Arthur casually picks it up, tests the sharp edge, starts cleaning his nails like he doesn’t care where he is.

Meanwhile, Eames watches Cobb gently disengage a string of pearls from the clingy branches. The black beads are heavy and clank together loudly as the man untangles the mess and holds the jewelry up for inspection.

“This, I’m not very….” He glances at Arthur, who swallows and looks at a very smug Eames, who knows what they are. The forger lifts his shoulders and shakes his head at Cobb, refusing to offer any hints.

“You think you’re so brilliant, don’t you?” Arthur can’t help but ask him. Eames has the tact to look humble. “Well they hardly make sense without _her_ do they?”

Cobb’s eyes light up and he looks at the fallen branch. “So it’s a girlfriend’s? The long lost E, maybe?”

Arthur keeps his face as passive as he had back when Eames first speculated the same thing without even the helpful initial. The point man appreciates Cobb playing ignorant about the letter, or maybe he thinks it is a coincidence too and really believes there was a girl. He gently tugs on the necklace as if testing its strength. “It’s expensive. She’s from money,” Cobb guesses.

“Very good,” Eames says but he only knows that much from the limited glimpses of her over the years, and allows Cobb the little victory only because Cobb is on the same wrong course Eames had first taken, assuming a girl-next-door lover affair. Then, suddenly,

“No, look, they’re related.” Cobb is studying the tree it was in. Eames and Arthur both huff in disbelief; the forger wonders how in the hell Cobb could have deciphered that, and the point man feels panicky because Cobb is forgetting to back up his knowledge with dream-symbols. He shoots the ex-shield an alarmed look behind Eames’ back, and the blond man grins like a cat, goes over to touch the bark of the ancient tree.

“This is a family tree, and it’s her pearls growing on it—like a cousin or an aunt or something, or his mom? Yeah; and there are mostly rich branches—but not his,” he kicks the dead limb again. “Severed from that comfortable life by--well anything. Maybe it was his drug habit.”

Eames huffs, _deeply_ impressed. Arthur goes rigid with annoyance because that kind of ambitious literary reading is risky for the gambit. “What drug habit? You’re getting ahead of yourself.”

With a smirk, Cobb forces his hand into the dark, damp little hole at the base of the tree and pulls out a couple of old school pill bottles with yellow labels, rattles them before he pockets them like a parent or something. “You know, Art. We’re not so different, you and me. I know all about these kinds of getaways. Mine was a dilapidated garden shack, had a life-time supply of Marlboro cigarettes and No Fuck Heads Allowed. But you were luckier. I didn’t have any E person to share it with …”

Arthur accidently catches his clear, blue eye and suddenly gets why Esca would have been such close friends with this understanding man. He wonders vaguely if Cobb was off-limits or if Esca ever got him to experiment a little before he married a woman. Then realizing his train of thought, he snaps out of it.

“There, Eames,” he says, voice hard, “He’s a natural. Figured me out in ten seconds flat. Can we go now?”

When he looks at the forger, he is surprised to see the older man looking a little dark and annoyed, and Arthur realizes then that Cobb’s shirt has sprouted red pin stripes, and maybe they have stared at each other for a little too long.

Alarmed, Arthur opens his mouth to shoot down the accusation, but there is no denying the red symbol of desire and his growing interest in his only connection to the past, so he doesn’t even ask who wants to wake up first. He just hurls the dagger into Cobb’s chest.

The body crumples, and Eames glares at him, then says casually, “Oh you needn’t have spoiled the moment on _my_ account, Arthur. I would have let you two be alone.”

“Eames,” he says, tiredly, walking to retrieve the knife.

“He’s good, darling. Very good. Natural, like you say. And cute.”

Gritting his teeth, Arthur rips the dagger out of Cobb’s corpse. “You’re just pissed he figured out the tree thing first.”

Eames glances down at the dead tree branch, then crooks three fingers at the three prongs, “Just tell me, are these brothers or sisters?”

Arthur considers answering. He recalls his resolve to let Eames learn the truth… but now that the chance is here, he isn’t ready. In the end, all he does it hurl the crimson soaked blade at Eames’ heart. It sinks in, and the forger stumbles, grabs the handle, and then falls to his knees, slumping over the carved initials. Left alone with the two dead bodies, Arthur drops his head back, eyes closed.

A few drops of water land on his face like tears, and the music begins so he doesn’t have to roll Eames over and get the stupid dagger. This lesson could have gone way worse—at least his last name is still a secret, and they didn’t discover everything about this place there was to find.

On the other side of these woods, a house is on fire, and at the bottom of this pit of ash are bones.

|           |           |           |

“Rise and shine, camper,” Eames says the second Arthur opens his eyes. Both Eames and Cobb are packing in a hurry.

“What’s up?” Arthur asks, pulling out the needle and shrugging into his coat. Eames sets the furniture back how they found it. “That real estate bitch is back early. Good thing you killed us out early, mate. We have to run.”

The three of them slip out of the unoccupied house just as the real estate agent opens the front door with her perspective clients in tow. Arthur closes the back door silently behind him and runs across the yard after his partners.

“Hey,” he catches Cobb as Eames darts across the street. Cobb looks back at him. Arthur nods back at the house. “Thanks.”

Cobb winks. “Just help me keep him from throwing me to the sharks just because I can pretend to swim.”

Arthur’s eyes crinkle in the corners. “I will.”

“Whoa, hello, where’s he going?” Cobb asks, alarmed as Eames peels away in the car, leaving them stranded. Arthur deflates, shaking his head. “He’s an asshole. Let’s get to that bar we saw.”

They match stride down the sidewalk.

|           |           |           |

Red stripes never hurt so much.

But whatever nightmares Eames has about Arthur and Dom sharing more long looks, then long touches, then long nights, dry up the next time he is in a dream with Dom and that beautiful dead girl comes barreling out of the shadows, kisses Dom fiercely, and then kills them all. Eames stops being jealous after that; Dom might be handsome and clever enough to tempt Arthur into painting him red in every dream, but he is clearly in love with his dead wife and far too hurt to move on from the memory of her just yet.

So the forger forgives Arthur for the pinstripes (Cobb is frightfully handsome, after all, so physical attraction there cannot be helped), and instead of hating Cobb, he thanks him for revealing more about Arthur in ten minutes than he ever managed to figure out in ten years.

A best friend called E that he grew up with, did everything with, who could be anybody but is probably one of those three siblings…that old drug habbit that started after his pearl-wearing mum died...

Arthur has brothers or sisters… where have they all gone?

The idea that there is more to Arthur to learn is never far from Eames’ thoughts. He starts to wonder if he can get Arthur to talk about himself… how he might make such a thing as that happen… would they need alcohol? … A bed?... How would one Segway into that kind of conversation?

When Eames sees that Cobb seems to be in the middle of a story, something that has Arthur smiling so big his dimples are showing, (which Eames happens to know is hard to do) he is immediately intrigued. He’s worked with Arthur for ten years, knows him to be deadly and intelligent and damn good at everything he does, and stoic by default… Eames rarely sees him like this. Certainly never while there’s still work to do.

Arthur and Cobb are across the workspace at a desk in rolling chairs, cleaning a dismantled PASIV. Leaving his work, the forger saunters over to get in on the conversation and learn what it is that makes Arthur look so affectionate. He’s surprised when Arthur and Cobb both clam up the moment he is near enough to hear them.

There’s a beat of silence that is unbearably humiliating to Eames but then the forger jumps right in, never one to just bend over and take it as it comes. “Go on, then, what were we giggling about, you two?”

Arthur grimaces, “We weren’t giggling.”

“You’re dimples were showing; that’s the closest to a giggle you’re ever going to get, Arthur.”

The point man gives Eames that dangerous look that clearly says, _don’t talk about my dimples_ , and he stands and strides back over to the white boards for work. Eames watches him go and then stubbornly turns to Cobb with his playful look on to ask, “Go on then, Cobb, what were the two of you talking about?”

Cobb shrugs and stands as well, “This and that.” He chuckles, tosses a piece of the PASIV at Eames who barely catches it, smirks at him, “Why do you care so much?”

Eames shifts gears into innocent nonchalance and shrugs, places the piece of machinery gently on the table as he pitches his voice towards the point man, “I’m bored and I like to tease our pretty little boy Arthur about his pretty little boy dimples.”

“Fuck you, Eames,” Arthur says mildly as he turns from the white board to his laptop screen. Eames chortles in barely contained affection. They all return to work and later when Eames realizes that Cobb and Arthur are IMing, he pretends not to notice and wills himself not to care. 

|           |           |           |

It’s late at night in the abandoned office building and the threesome extraction team has taken a break from their work to have microwaved supper. Eames has his phone out for the update on Mac’s status in the allegations of Reckless Dreaming, the Violation of a Professional Dreamer’s Rights to a Safe Workspace, and more.

First, Arthur tries to make Eames put the phone away, be sensitive to the fact that it’s all about Cobb’s dead wife, but Cobb insists he’s interested in it and Arthur relents. They watch the interview wherein Mac is ripped to shreds by the SDRA and two shrinks, but of the three of them Eames seems to be the only one who finds it funny.

That’s so not on.

Eames gets that Cobb wouldn’t be amused—Cobb knew Mac up close and personal, after all, and whether he misses her at all or not, it's about his wife. But it irks the forger that Arthur is acting like he gives a shit about the future of Blue War Shields Inc. He especially doesn’t like the way Cobb and Arthur team up on him and chide him for being unfeeling towards a man who is losing everything.

“This’s _Mac_ we’re talking about, mates,” Eames huffs. “It’s a _good_ thing he’s circling the drain, you ask me.”

Arthur hushes him then and takes the phone from Eames’ hand, frowning at the screen. “What’s this?”

The browser has loaded a video that relates to the first, something with the insignia of Eagle Standard Pharmaceuticals on it. Frowning, Arthur clicks play and they watch a laid back, feel-good interview about Marcus F. Aquila, the war hero and patented owner of SomNiCin™ name brand somniacintophine.

They listen about how he was wounded by an IED but proud to have served his country, blah blah blah, and then they hear the news that he’s preparing to take control of his company back from his uncle, who has been running it for him for the last twenty years, and then the _really_ interesting part makes Eames prickle with annoyance and swear.

“What’s the matter, Eames?” Arthur snorts.

“With Mr. American Hero vouching for him, Mac’s gonna get outta this!”

“Maybe,” Cobb hesitantly agrees with a shrug. Eames glowers at the image of Marcus Aquila on the little screen of his smart phone, sitting there in his chair with a smile as broad as his shoulders. Arthur snorts and sighs as if he’s infinitely more relaxed then he had been a moment ago.

“Ah well,” Eames mirrors Arthur and lets it go with a wave of his hand, saying, “I guess we’ve made it this far with Mac out to get us, we can keep going—besides, Arthur’s one of the best and now we’ve got someone who knows all Mac’s secrets on our side so we’ll be more than alright.”

“That’s the spirit,” Arthur chortles. Eames absently strokes the screen, the handsome man on it.

“It makes you wonder, though, doesn’t it?”

“’Bout what?” Cobb asks past a mouthful of rice.

“Why he’s getting his mind militarized!” Eames wriggles the phone to indicate he’s talking about Aquila.

“Shouldn’t he already have it militarized?” Cobb frowns. “He’s only the third richest man in the galaxy and has been since he was twelve or something.”

“Nah,” Eames corrects. “He was twelve when his pop bought the farm and he inherited Eagle Standard, but it wasn’t anything special back then. He was eighteen when they put SomNiCin™ on the market and he became a billionaire overnight. He went to Ivy league business school—he’s got brains too—but then joined the military when the war broke out. ”

Cobb snorts and trades a look with Arthur, and Eames flares with embarrassment and sniffs. “What? I pay attention to anything to do with dream share and the history of SomNiCin™ is part of it, so shut your gobs.”

“We didn’t say anything,” Arthur snickers and he and Cobb trade another amused look.

“What?” Eames demands heatedly.

“Next time you tell us the history of a handsome war-hero billionaire, you might want to make it sound a little less fan-girl and little more professional.”

Eames pockets his phone and flings a fork full of rice at Cobb, tells him to go fuck himself as they all three have a laugh. “No seriously, though,” Eames says when their laughter subsides. “How about it?”

Arthur frowns, licks sauce from his pinky as he chews, “What’re you talkin’ about?”

“Extracting from the handsome war-hero billionaire, darling, haven’t you been paying attention?”

They gawk at him like bewildered baby birds and Eames sighs, “The only reason for buying a lock is to protect something, right?”

“Yeah,” Arthur frowns.

“So—what’s Aquila got that suddenly needs protecting, I’d like to know? The whole lot of them in that Eagle Standard tower in LA has been getting by all this time without sub security, but suddenly they need it? Why now? What’re they up to?”

“You’re saying you want to extract from him? Do freelance and sell to the highest bidder?” Cobb asks, frowning in contemplation of the idea.

“Yes!” Eames cries, claps his hands once sharply, and looks to Arthur imploringly, “What do you say?”

Smirking, Arthur asks, “Why do all your ideas have to do with Aquila?”

“They don’t,” Eames replies as Cobb snorts with laughter at his expense.

“They do. It was your idea to steal all that SomNiCin and sell it.”

“We needed fast money,” Eames defends, “And the bleedin’ factory was right there, the whole plan easy as cake. It really had nothing to do with Aquila, did it? It was just his money, not even enough for him to notice. But this, though, this is the man’s _thoughts_ and that’s much more fun. What do you say?”

Arthur shakes his head, “I say no. We’ve got enough work lined up as it is. Besides, you’re talking about extracting something without knowing what that something is! What if there isn’t anything to sell?”

“But what if there _is_?” Eames counters, his eyes bright and his smile huge. “Think of it, Arthur: _The_ _SomNiCin™ guy’s_ secrets! We can sell each one for a few million easy.”

Arthur frowns, intrigued, of course, by the promise of such a lump sum of cash. Eames continues, “And if we act fast, we can sweep in before the bugger has proper training—swipe it all right from under Ol’ Mac’s nose—ha!”

“Nah,” Arthur suddenly says, “I find it hard to believe Aquila doesn’t already have sub security. He was in the military and he’s been the owner of this company for more than half his life.”

“Arthur’s got a point, Eames,” Cobb says, “What if Aquila and Mac just have some kind of deal worked out for Aquila to vouch for him on CNN, you know for good PR?”

“Even then, we have you two!” Eames cries, “You can’t sit there and tell me sub security is really a big obstacle for an ex-shield and the best point man in the biz.”

“True,” Cobb concedes, frowning at Arthur in a _what-do-you-think?_ - _I’m-in-if-you’re-in_ kind of way that Eames ignores.

Arthur looks from Cobb to Eames; studies his long-time forging partner through squinted eyes and then he finally sighs, “Oh, what the hell. Fine. It’ll be our little pet project on the side, okay, Eames?”

Eames fist pumps dramatically for the comic effect, which has both his partners laughing. Arthur puts aside his Styrofoam microwave dinner plate and stretches, reaches lazily for his laptop.

“I’ll start the research now.”

“Wait a minute, you said we were taking only fifteen minutes for a break--we’re still doing the Sully job, right?” Cobb asks, afraid it’s typical to invest so much time into one job simply to flip flop out of it and straight into another one. Eames bumps shoulders with him gently.

“Course we are, but let him alone, Cobb. Research is how dear little Arthur relaxes.”

“Well here,” Cobb drags his chair closer to Arthur in that eager-student way Eames has already seen him do a hundred times. “I’ve never researched a mark before—where do you start?”

Eames frowns at them when Arthur does not tell Cobb to leave him alone, but easily falls right into teaching his researching methods to the newbie.

First, Eames feels oddly threatened. Then he immediately reminds himself that Cobb has made it clear he wants to learn all aspects of extraction and—this is the part Eames holds on to the most—once Arthur has taught him everything, Cobb will move on and find his own partner.

 _Good extractor or not_ , Eames thinks as he studies the way Arthur chuckles at the comments Cobb makes about what they see on the laptop screen, _he had just_ better _move on_.


	5. Slavery

**Chapter 5: Professional Necessities, or Honor-Bound Duties, or Serving in a Life Debt, or Slavery**

There is a crest on the pencil holder on the assistant’s desk, an eagle in flight, a slice of gold under it. Esca glowers at the insignia, so sickeningly familiar to him. It had been on the lid of the yellow pill bottle on the bedside table in his parent’s bedroom. That mother fucking pill bottle.

He does not want to be here, where that insignia is on everything from pencil holders to marble slabs in the floor, to janitor name tags.

Given a choice, Esca would burn this place to the ground, but Dominic Cobb has robbed him of that freedom. BWS Inc has lost all its major clients and has no choice but to take this job. It’s been years since Esca personally gave a lesson, but sending in anyone else to do it won’t do; this is the only job he’s had since news broke about Mal, and it has to be done right. Damage control, brownnosing to Eagle Standard. Bleh, Esca thinks he’s going to be sick.

But Eagle Standard is his last hope, so Esca does what surviving MacCunoval’s do best and he removes himself from emotions, says what he says and does what he what he does because he has to. For now.

“Blue War Shields Inc,” he tells the redhead behind the desk. She looks up at him with huge eyes through thick lashes, and then over at the curly-haired associate towering over him, just a nameless shadow, bored. The click of the button under a manicured nail is audible in the silence of the reception area and the receptionist says into the speaker, “McCarnival and company is here, sir.”

“MacCunoval,” Esca corrects her, keeping his professional smile on over his annoyance while Tommy at his elbow chuckles silently. “Mac KUN o VUL.”

The receptionist looks like she cannot care less.

“Tommy,” the man says, pointing at himself. She nods, and goes back to her computer, a cool brush off. It’s Esca’s turn to smirk when Tommy pulls a face at her back. For one second, today is just another day at work with friends.  Then a kind but distracted sounding voice out of the speaker says, “Wha--? Oh, cool. Thanks, Cottia, send him in.”

She motions to the office door and Esca changes his heavy silver case from one hand to the other as he and Tommy head for the wooden door, and enter the office of his three o clock appointment, Mr. Marcus F. Aquila, that pretty boy douche that saved him without anyone asking him to.

This should be interesting.

Inside Esca finds a by-the-book office: corner, with a stunning view of LA out all four windows, standard vegetation spaced throughout, impressionist art on the walls, leather and dark wood furniture.

There are three people in the room, Luke Aquila and his nephew Marcus, and one other gentleman advanced in years. Each of them looks at Esca when he enters, and he gives a smile, or at least doesn’t scowl, and introduces himself and then motions to his assistant. “This is my associate, Tom. He will be keeping sentinel on behalf of Blue War Shield’s legal department.”

The nearest and first to come forward and shake Esca’s hand is Mr. Luke Aquila and he murmurs through his peppery beard that it’s good to see him again. Esca glances over to the desk and sees that the nephew billionaire is bent over papers scribbling something in huge capital letters across a page with the phone pressed between his ear and shoulder.

Mr. Aquila makes a motion to the other older man in the room, who has white hair also and sagging blue eyes, “And this is my assistant, Stephan.”

Esca gives a nod, face trained in the closest thing to amiable as he can get—stubborn defiance. A moment later, the company owner ends his call and stands with an apology. He snatches up a cane which hangs on the edge of his desk by its grip and slides his forearm into a cuff at the top before he makes his way around the desk with a very noticeable dependence on the cane, left leg slow and uncoordinated.

Esca juts out his chin, tries to hide his surprise, because not only is Marcus in his early thirties and thus one of the youngest multi-billionaire-dollar company owners that the dream security expert has ever met, he is by far the handsomest, with the kind of good looks that make him look even younger than he is, so a cane like an old man is grossly out of place.

At six feet something, Marcus meets Tommy in height and towers over Esca’s humble stature, made bigger by very broad shoulders, a strong neck, chiseled chin and thick hands; he looks like he probably played contact sports in high school and broke other people’s bones while he was at it. He looks far too strong and healthy to be depending on a cane like some poor sod with polio—but he’s a war hero, war-wound and all.

Somehow all of that detail missed on Esca when he stood panicking in the CNN dressing room, on the very edge of ruin, and watched Marcus save him with a few kind words. That day, the man saving his life had been nothing but a shape and voice speaking up for him against the overwhelming tide of hate. Now, in the flesh, Esca is finding that he is less righteously angry than he should be.

“Hi,” Marcus says, coming to a stop and resting his weight on his right leg, momentarily slipping his hand from the cane’s cuff and shifting the stick to the other hand so he can reach out for a shake with his dominate right. Esca is pulled back to the present and he narrows his eyes, grips the offered hand.

Marcus’s smile is big and clear and it takes even more years from his age until he might as well be the boy next door, “Marcus Aquila.”

His purity annoys Esca greatly.

“Esca MacCunoval,” the sub-security trainer says with a measured amount of professionalism that stings his pride, but he grits his teeth against it. He’s endured worse for his company than playing nice with pretty boys. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Mr. Aquila.”

“Marcus, please,” is the immediate answer with a good natured wave of his hand. Esca introduces Tommy, who mirrors Aquila’s Mr. Wonderful Nice Guy attitude like he was born to it, and Escs has a bitter taste in his mouth from all the amiability flying around the room. Then the cane is back in use as he returns to his chair behind his desk, “So how does this work?”

Frowning, Esca asks, “You’ve never shared a dream before?”

“No,” Marcus shrugs.

“Never had a lucid dream at all?”

“No,” Marcus laughs, “Why should I have?”

“You’re only the owner of SomNiCin,” Esca answers incredulously. “You’re saying you’ve never taken it?”

Marcus looks surprised and when Esca looks over at the uncle he looks surprised, too. Luke is the one who answers in his serene way of speaking, “We’ve never been diagnosed with a need for it, Mr. MacCunoval. We deal in prescription regulated drugs, not candy in a candy store.”

This is a very excellent point so well made that it brings color to Esca’s neck. In the corner where he slipped off to, Tommy is chuckling to himself again, the fucker. He knows that Esca had been thirteen the first time his big brother handed him some dream pills. Everyone does it at least once in a lifetime, if not every now and then to have a little fun. It’s like weed.

Esca had been sure that the celebrity heir of billions, Marcus Aquila, would have—somewhere in the middle of his wild younger years right after he got rich and became famous for only being rich—given his little money maker a test run once or twice.

But apparently not.

“Well,” Esca moves toward the desk with a mind to get it all over with quickly. The uncle and the uncle’s assistant make way for him. He sits his silver case on the dark wood and all eyes go to it as he says, “We’ll synchronize our brain waves with somniacinatophine dosing intravenously using this machine. We’ll share an incredibly lucid dream. I’ll build the dreamscape and you’ll populate it with your subconscious. While we’re Under, I’ll teach your mind how to recognize threats and protect itself from extractors.”

“Isn’t it dangerous?” Marcus asks, eyeing the case with suspicion.

Esca’s jaw tightens and his teeth creak loudly in his ears. The old man laughs as if it’s all very amusing, prompting the shield to speak coldly, “Only if _you_ do something stupid and against the rules. A dream’s only as dangerous as you make it!”

Marcus holds up his hands, alarm on his face, purely apologetic, and Esca knows instantly that his venom had been uncalled for, but no one in the room needs to ask where it came from. He clenches his jaw and says no more, letting his silence and downcast eyes serve as the apology; such is the only apology anyone is ever going to get out of a MacCunoval.

His newest client accepts it kindly and swiftly moves them forward from the awkward moment with a creak of his chair as Marcus leans back. “Trust me, I’m accident prone so I can use all the advice I can get. What kind of stupid things should I avoid doing?”

Esca hates that the corner of his mouth nearly ticks in amusement pulled from him by that broad, compliant smile on the CEO’s devastatingly symmetrical face and he answers, “You needn’t fear too much. This compound is… _diluted_ , you can say--enough that any accidents you make after we go Under will only wake you up.”

“Oh good, I’ll be dreaming with the training wheels on then.” Marcus winks.

Tommy, Uncle and Stephan chuckle and Esca refrains from rolling his eyes though he wants to as a way to shrug off the tingles that the wink left in him. He leans forward to unlatch and open the silver case to reveal the delicate gizmos, the somniacinatophine pumps, the timer and the rolled up IV tubes inside.

“Should my uncle go, um, u-Under with me?” Marcus asks with a stumble over what Esca has called entering the dream.

“Only if it’ll make you both more comfortable,” Esca replies tersely, irked that Marcus is still worried for his safety. And the sickening part is that this is only the beginning— _If_ Blue War Shields Inc. survives in the first place—because from now on every client will need to be reassured like a child about to get a tetanus shot. He continues coolly,

“If your uncle is present, we do run the risk that his subconscious might be accidently brought in, and if his mind is present during your training, your subconscious will never recognize it as something that doesn’t belong.”

Marcus sits up at this, brows knitting together. For the first time he does not look like someone who would happily help an old lady across the street; the scowl darkens his face, “If you’re saying that it’s a risk because he might one day betray me--“

“To protect against the event of his betrayal, if he is going to join us, first you will have to sign a legal waver that frees me of being sued.”

“This is his company, too!” Marcus snaps, “He’ll never have a reason to steal its secrets from me!”

Unable to stop the condescending smile, Esca replies with a motion to his silver case, “With a PASIV, someone can steal much more than just business secrets, Marcus. Allowing someone to share a dream with you is giving them a _direct line_ to your subconscious, which knows a hell of a lot more about you than you do. Going Under with someone is handing them the key to the box that holds your business secrets, your private life, you’re childhood, _everything_.”

Marcus pales.

Esca loves this part. He sits back and watches the stronger man struggle between staying a trusting nephew or a private individual. The dream share specialist looks to the uncle and back to the nephew and waits. Finally, Marcus sits back and scratches his head and gives the older man an apologetic look, “Set this one out, Uncle?”

This is usually the part where feelings are hurt and insults fly, but to Esca’s surprise, Uncle simply chuckles and says, “I’ll be going, then. Good luck, Nephew. Stephan, keep an eye on them?”

The blatant suggestion that Esca and Tommy are not to be trusted does not insult Esca in the slightest--it has nothing to do with Mal’s suicide because it’s been part of every single lesson of his career; his clients being men and women who have been taught to beware men with a silver case. In fact, he’s glad that Mr. Aquila suggests Stephan stay, because he has to insist on someone from Eagle Standard doing so. Tommy can’t be the only one to monitor, since his loyalty is with Blue War Shields.

Marcus actually blushes a little as he next looks at Esca, and Esca waits for the inevitable question.

“So--how much of, um, my mind… are you going to see down there?”

“It’s different for everyone,” Esca says with a shrug, smiling a little at the second _um_ he’s heard from the blindly successful billionaire in less than five minutes. When Marcus doesn’t look relieved, Esca raises his eyebrows, “You’re under no obligation to do this.”

“Of course I am!” Marcus cries in mostly breath. He smiles as he leans back in his chair and flips a pen nervously but nimbly through his fingers. “I have trade secrets worth billions!”

“Hiring an around the clock body guard is equally as effective as building an army of them in your mind,” Esca explains with a shrug, motioning to Tommy. “If the extractors can’t plug you into their PASIVs then they can’t steal your secrets.”

Marcus is silent as he seriously considers this and it makes Esca smile, the thought of a man of Marcus’ huge build hiring a body guard; it’s like a gun hiring another gun to defend its gunpowder.

“Well either way I won’t have privacy,” Marcus concludes. “At least this way, you’re the only one snooping around in my business. And who knows, maybe we’ll become friends.” He smiles and Esca returns it almost easily, digging around the compartments of the silver case until he’s retrieved the cotton balls and air tight sealed needles.

“Are you allergic to anything?” Esca asks as he rips open disinfecting swabs and hands some to Marcus. Marcus shakes his head as he takes them and Esca loosens the cuffs of his jacket and shirt sleeve and rolls up the fabric to demonstrate on his own arm where Marcus should clean, the soft place on his wrist.

Marcus undoes his cuff—he has silver links, not buttons—and strips the fabric back to reveal a strong, thick-veined forearm with a smattering of freckles, swabs his wrist.

Pulling the rolled up tubes out like the retractable cords of a vacuum cleaner, Esca connects the needles to the IVs and silently asks for Marcus’s wrist.

“Small pinch,” he warns and without a pause inserts the needle square into the vein. Esca does this a lot, hasn’t missed a vein in four years. He holds the needle down with a white Velcro strap and then inserts his own.

“Shouldn’t I be lying down?” Marcus asks.

“No,” Esca answers. “Just lean back or slump forward. I’m sure you sleep at this desk for cat naps, it’ll be no different than that.”

“You’ll have me trained in five minutes?” Marcus asks with obvious skepticism, a crinkle in his forehead as his eyebrow rises adorably.

“Okay this is how it works,” Esca sighs. He realizes this is another change brought on by Mal’s leap from that ledge; his clients will no longer be inclined to treat it all like magic.

From now on, everyone will want to hear about the science. Esca used to love talking about the mechanics of it all… but lately he’s had to explain it far too much, in his defenses against the murder charges.

“Somniacinatophin excites your brain activity. With this compound, 5 minutes of Real Time is multiplied by twelve. You’re probably good at math, so now you know that if you give me five minutes of your life, down Under that turns into an hour in your head. Ten minutes is two hours, so on and so forth.”

“Wow,” Marcus huffs with wide impressed eyes, not at Esca’s rudimentary math skills but at the abilities of the revolutionary psycho-drug and technology which has significantly advanced corporate espionage and has thus struck fear into the corporate business world.

“You haven’t even seen the beginning of it,” Esca assures, and for a moment—a brief beautiful flash somewhere in his chest—he’s happy and enthusiastically obsessed with his job like he used to be. For just a moment, despite the dreadfulness it has brought to him recently, the wonders of shared dreaming still astonish Esca.

He sets the timer for five minutes (an hour in the dream), sets back in his chair and gives his client a grin, “Ready?”

“As I’ll ever be,” Marcus replies as he leans back.

Esca’s eye catches on an enchanting painting on the wall—an old house in a flowering garden—as he reaches out and presses the plunger in the center of the pumps. Fluid shoots through the tubes and into their arms, burns in their veins ice cold, and Marcus hisses in surprise and then they drop into the dream.

|           |           |           |

Esca is the dreamer, he builds the world.

He chooses to replicate that painting on Marcus’ office wall: a countryside villa in the style of ancient Rome. It’s long with wings on either side, a reflecting pool on several different levels with little waterfalls connecting them, a beautiful flowering garden. Esca intends for them to arrive just outside the front door, as the picture shows.

But he finds himself indoors.

Marcus is the subject, his mind fills the world up.

Their clothes do not match the setting at all; Esca thinks they should be in togas and sandals but Marcus is dressed down in a suit, the jacket gone, the sleeves rolled up above his elbows, his tie gone, the top buttons undone to show stark collarbones under taut unblemished skin.

Esca finds himself in the same suit he’s wearing in reality, a black three piece that’s tailored to his lean frame with a black silk vest and a black undershirt, but the tie is red here instead of black. Bright red. Interesting.

Red means attraction, this shade of red means big attraction. Esca’s stomach flutters at the notion that a tall, strong, handsome man finds him desirable. He tugs at the knot of the red tie, adjusting it somewhat nervously.

It’s late in the evening of a summer day and they’re in the stone arch that divides a room into an entrance way and a dining room. Marcus idly spins his cane in his right hand and with its _thunk_ to the stone at his feet, he snaps out of his daze.

“I’m sorry can I get you a drink?” Marcus asks, fumbling slightly to get his wrist into the cuff, then with the clack-clack of his stick on the stone, he rushes into the kitchen that’s through a smaller stone arch in the opposite wall. Esca notes that though Marcus walks with the cane, he isn’t really using it.

Esca drifts after him, hands in his pockets, and is surprised as he enters the next room.

Marcus is idly leaning on his cane, bent to look in the opened door of an old fridge, circa before-WWII, that helps the porcelain sink (with its corroded hot and cold taps) and the equally ancient bulbous stove (with its gas eyes) to destroy the ancient Rome atmosphere. But it’s quaint in its own way, has a _lived in_ feel to it.

“Just water, thanks,” Esca says, looking around; he hasn’t built any of this, only provides the yard and the outside which he got from the painting. This interior and all of the modern stuff is Marcus’ doing. It happens sometimes; some people have such a powerfully vivid imagination it butts in and does a lot of the work for the dreamer. Interesting that Marcus should have so vividly imagined the inside of the house in the painting on his office wall…

“Sure,” Marcus straightens from his raid of the old fridge and whirls, juts his cane behind him to shut the fridge door as he pulls a glass from the cabinet and sticks it under the tap. The smile he tosses Esca is that boy-next-door-smile again.

“And you’re going to have to repeat whatever it is you just said,” he says, and hands out the water, “because I think I spaced out for a sec.” The glass has brightly colored frames of Garfield and Ottis on it.

Esca takes his distinctly middle class drink with quite thanks and says confidently, fishing for explanations, “I was saying it’s beautiful here.”

“Thanks. It kind of started falling into disrepair after Dad died. But I’ve done a lot to it since I turned eighteen—you know, when I came into my money.”

“Ah,” Esca is starting to panic now. Had he known the painting was a portrayal of a _real_ place he never would have used it, this could be dangerous if he lets this go on for even a moment more.

Esca is disappointed he has to end this part so soon. Typically, he likes to let the first dream go on for a while before he reminds the client that it’s just a dream and then teaches them how to tell the difference.

It’s always his favorite part of the job to shatter the illusion in some dramatic way—but if this place is a real place then the fun has to be over quickly before Marcus loses grip on reality.

“How did we get here?” Esca asks.

“We--”’ Marcus starts to answer with a laugh but he cuts himself off and frowns, clearly not able to grab the memory of arriving in the countryside. Esca watches the troubled expression escalate and then he asks kindly,

“Do you know where you are, Marcus?”

Marcus lifts his eyes to him, eyebrows rising at the question, “Ye-ah,” he says slowly as if he’s waiting for the punch line. “I’m at _Calleva_ \--Oh,” he cuts in with a laugh. “ _That’s_ what you meant: where _are_ we! Yeah, it’s pretty much out in the middle of _nowhere_. Lemme see,” he drops his head back, Adam’s Apple on display as he thinks, “The nearest town that shows up on any maps would be--“

“I’m not talking about maps,” Esca cuts in calmly, “Just think about it. How did we get here?”

Unlike most new dreamers who would be panicking right about now, Marcus only looks amused, “Are you sure you’re alright?”

“Do you know where you are?” Esca asks again, losing a little bit of patience. He can feel the gun in his waistline. If Marcus doesn’t figure it out soon, he’ll use it.

“I’m at _home_!” Marcus cries with a smile, a lot of breath. He looks Esca up and down, playfully throws the question back, even stepping flirtatiously closer, “Do you know where _you_ are?”

“Yeah, I’m in your office,” Esca returns without humor, steps back and takes another drink of his water, dark eyes fixed calmly on Marcus’ green.

“What?” Marcus huffs, losing his smile and looking confused, even concerned.

“You’re corner office in LA where you have an oil painting of this place on the wall,” Esca says calmly, “I’m there right now and so are you. We’re asleep.”

He sees it creep back into Marcus’ mind: reality, the office, the PASIV, the explanations, the needles. His green eyes bug out, “We’re _dreaming_?” he stumbles backwards several steps, cane dragging on the stone underfoot.

“Yes,” Esca says, sitting down the glass and crossing his arms, watching silently as Marcus looks around with his mouth open. He shakes his head, “We can’t be… but…”

“But you remember that you hired me to teach you sub security.”

“Yeah, but--“

“Trust what you remember, Marcus,” Esca says firmly. “And _never_ forget this: the easiest way to determine if you are in a dream is to see if you can remember how you got there. When you dream, you never ever start at the beginning, you drop right into the middle of it. You’ll never remember how we ended up here at Calleva today because we didn’t take a car or a train or a bus--“

Here Marcus snorts and says, “We’d have flown the helicopter, but yeah, I get it.” He looks around, shakes his head, “This is so wild.”

“This is nothing,” Esca says. “Watch this.”

He turns and walks out of the kitchen and the click of the stick on the stone behind him says Marcus is following. Through the small arch they’re back in the dining room, and through the bigger arch they’re in the entrance way. Esca jerks open the front door by the old iron ring that is in place of a door knob and steps outside.

It’s not the front landing out here; it’s a city street, one like in LA but not one that will ever actually be found there.

Marcus rushes out and looks around in awe. “This is unbelievable!”

The towering buildings, the traffic, the people, the car exhaust, the trash: it’s all there five steps from the front door of Calleva. Marcus gawks at it all, his jaw slack and his eyes bright as he takes it all in.

Having seen it all a million times, Esca’s eyes have fallen to the cane that his client is still gripping and he suddenly asks, “How long have you had that?”

Marcus looks down at it too and says, “Oh, um… about three months.”

Esca runs at him, snatches the walking aid from the taller man and instantly raising it up like a baseball bat. Marcus cries out in alarm and rushes backwards out of range. “What the-- what is your problem?”

The skilled dreamer lowers the cane and leans on it, smirking, “Nothing. How’s your leg?”

Marcus gives a start and looks down at his left leg, which he is standing very firmly on. He gasps and jumps his weight back and forth from leg to leg. “What’d you do to me?” he asks.

“Nothing. You’ve had this cane long enough to project yourself with it, but not long enough to think of yourself as a man with a limp.”

“HA!” Marcus cries and he starts running down the street. At the end he turns and runs back, zig-zagging over to step up on a fire hydrant and—holy shit—do a back flip and land firmly on both feet.

To music Esca can’t hear, the thirty something CEO commences to break dance, popping it and locking it and dropping to the ground to spin and flip around like some gangster street dancer before springing back to his feet.

He’s laughing in pure joy, face bright and radiating that aura of someone who forgives easily and loves quickly, “THIS IS AMAZING!”

Esca stops smiling, looks down at the cane in his hand.

Shit.

He shouldn’t have taken it—why had he? True, it’s a perfect example of the power of dreams, but it’s also a pretty shitty thing to do to someone who will no doubt have a weak useless leg and an old man’s cane for the rest of his life; giving him a teasing taste of something he can’t have. Esca’s stomach feels heavy as he watches a complete stranger enjoy having two strong legs again with the energy and purity of a child.

Too soon Marcus will have to wake up and be crippled again. Esca _really_ shouldn’t have taken the cane from him, and he can’t really come up with a damn good reason why he had.

All he has is that he wanted to see the gorgeous man as he must have been.

Shit. Shit. Shit.

Marcus is panting when he stops dancing and returns to Esca’s side. He holds out a hand, smiling broadly, “Thanks, man.”

Esca takes the hand not wanting to be rude and is surprised when he’s instantly tugged into a bear hug that pops the breath right out of his lungs. Esca’s whole life is work; it’s been a while since he’s been pressed up against anybody outside of his occasional stress-relief _private_ lucid dream.

Marcus’s whole body shakes with laughter and then, far too suddenly, he tenses, lets Esca go and looks around, all humor gone and asking in something like creeping panic, “Why are people looking at us?”

The shorter man has to take another step back to regain equilibrium and personal space. He clears his throat to shake off the clinging memory of strong arms pressing him against a body of rock hard muscle. He looks around at the people in the street who are stopped and staring at the pair of them, and he’s thankful for the springboard back into business.

“You’re subconscious knows something is wrong.”

“What’s wrong?”

“Could be you walking on that leg so easily—most likely it’s the city street I just ran through the front yard. Your subconscious gets suspicious when the dreamer changes something.”

“Are they me?” he asks, eyeing the people on the street.

“You are you and they are everything else, all the stuff you hide or don’t think about or haven’t learned yet. It’s all rather amazing, and we could spend forever analyzing your world, but time and money is better served turning them into perfect soldiers. Now I’ve got their attention; if I change anything else they will kill me out of the dream—do some house cleaning, whatever you want to call it. My conscious doesn’t belong in your head and they will rectify that.”

Marcus eyes his projections warily, scratching the back of his head. “Um. Kill you out?”

Esca’s hands slip into his pockets and he smirks and nods. “It’s the only way to wake up before the music. Come this way, let’s begin.”

|           |           |           |

When the dream is over and Esca opens his eyes, he sees Stephan and Tommy pause their amiable conversation to look over with interest at the first sign of life. To them, it’s been only five quite minutes. To Esca, it’s been an hour and it’s been… unsettling… Marcus is still asleep, slumped forward with his head on his arms, his nose pressed comically into his forearms. Esca almost grins at the sight but tames it.

“Shouldn’t he be awake?” Stephan asks, worried. The shield smirks at the man and sits up, pulls the tube from his wrist and in that moment Marcus jumps awake screaming. “AHH, son of a b--Ouch,” he gasps, a hand to his chest. Stephan rushes over to ask after him.

“Pain is in the mind,” Esca says simply as if Marcus isn’t gasping for breath. Marcus waves Stephan away and glares at Esca.

“You _shot_ me!”

“I woke you up.”

“It _hurt_ ,” Marcus coughs, still massaging his chest. He looks frightfully pale, but still much better than he had in the dream, in a pool of his own gushing blood.

“It’s only in your mind; it’ll fade.”

Marcus knits his brow together in what has to be the darkest look Esca has yet seen on that All American, good boy face. “Do you _honestly_ not have better aim than that?”

Esca straightens his back, feeling flames on his face, “Excuse me?”

“I know you’re not _really_ a soldier, but you’re almost one, being the Blue War Shields guy who leads armies in our minds,” he’s practically quoting the commercials and he shrugs, “I just thought your aim would be better, unless you were _trying_ to be cruel.”

That is precisely what Esca had been trying to be. Cute guys too easily encroaching on Esca’s sensibilities like Marcus had been doing in that dream just need to be taken down a peg or two. Especially when they are the owner of Eagle Standard Pharmaceuticals. Esca only looks back at Marcus with no explanations and no apologies, but Tommy’s eyes are boring into the back of his head, into him, and he knows he’s being an asshole, but he won’t let himself care.

“The point is to make me die,” Marcus continues and that darkness is gone, like he’s decided to give Esca the benefit of a doubt despite how obviously cruel it had been of Esca to fill him up with lead and leave him to bleed out, “Just work on your aim so you hit me in my heart and kill me instantly next time.”

Esca is thrown by how quickly Marcus has forgiven him for his cruelty. _No one_ can just get over it when they are shot in what is obviously cold blood with no motive, especially a _war veteran_ , right? But apparently, the ex-soldier in front of him has already moved on and it’s a new day with no grudges.

It’s sickening.

“What now?” Marcus asks. Esca just wants to get this stupid job over with so that he can leave and never see this stupidly good looking, stupidly sweet man again. He refrains from sighing and pushes his voice to sound as professional as he possibly can.

“Okay, time for a review. There are two basic ways to test a dream. What are they?”

“Think how I got there and check my totem,” Marcus answers easily with a cocky smile, leaning back and putting his hands behind his head smugly. It’s ruined when his chair nearly tips beneath him. Esca snorts derisively at him and continues,

“Let’s say both of those tests fail. Then what do you do?”

Marcus has righted himself in the chair, gripping the edge of the desk. “Um--Call you.”

“And?”

“It won’t really be you,” he answers promptly. “It’ll be just a projection and I should ask for the password to be sure.”

“Right, and I give you the correct password. What then?”

“Don’t trust you anyway,” he fires off instantly.

“You need to wake yourself up,” Esca fires back. “Options.”

“Kill myself.”

“That’s only one.”

“I only _need_ one.” He’s flirting, that glint in his eye, the smirk on his lips, the way he’s leaning forward on his elbows. It’s exactly the kind of shit he was pulling in the dream. Annoyed, Esca sits back and laces his fingers and focuses on the work at hand. _Training_ him.

“But you’re not sure you’re dreaming.”

“I’ll know I am dreaming because I’ll ignore what I am unsure of. I’ll focus only on what I _know_ to be true so that little harmless doubts won’t build up and start to make me panic. I _know_ I can’t trace my steps to where I am. I _know_ my totem is wrong. Nothing else matters.” He is good, must have something like a photographic memory because he’s practically quoting Esca’s lessons verbatim having heard them only once in a dream. Gritting his teeth, Esca throws his curve ball.

“You don’t know how you got somewhere, and you’ve noticed an anomaly that you _know_ is wrong, yet you’re totem looks _good_. Then what do you do?”

“I…” Marcus stops, frowns, “I have no idea.”

“Should you kill yourself?” Esca asks, pressuring him.

“But my totem—I’m supposed to trust it and you said it was right.” He looks unsure and Esca is pleased at the sight but he urgently presses further,

“Come on, Marcus, time is of the essence, are you dreaming? Should you kill yourself to find out?”

“I--“

“Tick tock, tick tock, they’re taking your secrets, Marcus.”

“But my totem--“

“Should you kill yourself or not?”

“I DON’T KNOW!”

Esca is smug in the ringing silence that permeates the office after Marcus’s outburst. Stephan is watching with his mouth open. Tommy is grinning, deeply amused by Esca’s techniques today. Marcus looks ashamed of himself. Esca sits back as he instructs, “Never trust anything more than what you _know_ is true.”

“But if I’m dreaming, why would my totem be right?”

“Think about it; what is a totem for?”

“To check if I’m dreaming.”

“No.”

“Yes it is. That’s what you said!”

“I said a totem is to make sure you’re not in _someone else’s_ dream.”

Esca sees it dawn on the businessman, “You’re saying my totem won’t work when _I’m_ the dreamer?”

“Correct. A totem is your secret. If you know the secret, you project it correctly.”

“But I won’t be the dreamer—I don’t know how to build dreams.”

“You should really think before you speak. _Of course_ you know how to build dreams. Every human who has ever constructed a daydream or a sexual fantasy or even a memory can build a dream. Extractors know this, and they’ll use it against you and make you both the dreamer and the subject; it’s dangerous for them because as observers it is vastly easier for your mind to single them out as alien, but the crazier ones will do it.”

“Okay,” he nods once like a soldier accepting orders.

“Scenario: you can’t trace your steps to where you are, you’ve noticed something off, but your totem is right. You know this means you’re dreaming and that you’re the dreamer. Now what?”

Marcus manages to look small despite his size, “…Can I still kill myself?”

“I don’t know, can you?”

“Jesus…” he looks bewildered and terrified, “I’m supposed to put a gun to my head and just _hope I’m right_?”

“You can do a little more than rely on hope,” Esca finds himself reassuring. “Think about everything I did when we were Under.”

“You were changing things! And if I’m the dreamer _I_ can change things so I should try to make the sun go down or something. Then I’ll have definitive proof that I’m asleep.” That cocky smile is back and he sits straighter, obviously proud of himself.

Quickly sterilizing the tubes they’ve just used, Esca switches them and announces, “You’ll be the dreamer this time, for practice on recognizing this gambit.”

Marcus presents his wrist for a second injection, which Esca gives as he says, “You’ll build an imaginary waiting room.”

“Why not just use the waiting room outside my office?”

“Never use real places. It’ll only end in you getting lost in dreams.”

“Oh…” Marcus frowns up at the enchanting painting on the wall, “But _you_ used a real place—Calleva.”

Esca’s jaw tightens. “I only used it because I didn’t know it was a real place. That’s why I changed the setting as soon as I knew better.”

Marcus frowns, “But you got my kitchen and everything down to the last detail.”

“That wasn’t me. It was you. I was basing my design on a picture that does not give me a lot to go on. Your imagination swooped in and built the place before I could fill it all in with guess work.”

Marcus looks intrigued and Esca returns to the topic at hand, “You’ll build an _imaginary_ waiting room. Not a real place. But make it a place that passes as a real place. Think you can handle that?”

Marcus sits back and grins at Esca, winks when Esca reaches for the button. “See you down there,” he says in a voice that’s half an octave lower than before. His eyes are piercing into Esca until they both drop into the dream.

|           |           |           |

It is not a waiting room. It is not even a room. It is a beach.

Esca feels the chill of the wind on his bare back and hears the waves. He’s in a swim suit. He smells of sunscreen. This is the strangest beach Esca has ever seen. It’s scattered with abandoned carnival rides, a carrousel, a kiddie roller coaster, even a Ferris wheel.

“What have you done?” Esca asks Marcus. “I said a waiting room.”

Marcus is not in a business suit, either, but bright red trunks, broad planes of muscle on display as he sits reclined on a blanket in the sand, a basket of food, wine. He blinks and frowns up at Esca, “Sorry, baby, I wasn’t listening. What’d you say?”

The uncalled-for pet name, the freaky but unmistakably date-like setting, and the tell-tale red of Marcus' shorts prompts Esca to growl and kick sand at him hard enough that Marcus flinches and sputters as he sweeps it from his eyes.

“What in the hell did you do, Aquila?”

“Hey!” Marcus laughs, scrambling to his feet, “What’s this about? We’re supposed to be having a good time. Not fighting--“

Esca holds him off by planting a palm dead center on Marcus’ chest and locking his elbow straight. The lesson plan says to let Marcus realize he is dreaming on his own, but this dream is not what he ordered so they’re going to wake up and try it again. He pulls his gun after he makes it materialize in the waist band of his trunks and demands, “How did we get here?”

Marcus balks at the weapon, “We drove—why do you have?—Oh, _shit_ , no, WE’RE DREAMING!”

It’s impressive how quickly he has remembered. So impressive, Esca forgets to use the gun. Marcus snorts, peering around in great amusement and then laughing and even pointing at the carrousel. “I didn’t do anything, this is all you. Look at _that_!”

Esca balks and looks around with new eyes, horrified that none of this dream is Marcus’ doing, “ _You what_?”

The look on the taller man’s face is entirely too smug, “I decided to step back and take a peek at your imagination, since you got to see mine.”

Outrage makes the top of Esca’s head feel like it’s blowing off. “YOU CAN’T JUST ROOT AROUND IN MY HEAD!”

“Whoa,” Marcus’ amusement falls away. “What’s wrong?”

Esca shoves him, hard, “Invasion of privacy! I’ve had enough. I quit. Eagle Standard can just go fuck itself because I’m not putting up with this shit. Find someone else to teach you sub security.” He lifts his gun, and turns it on himself.

“WAIT!” Marcus cries, but Esca does not listen.

|           |           |           |

“I’m sorry!” Marcus cries the moment he’s awake. Livid, Esca is getting up, ripping out his IV. Tommy cuts off in the middle of a sentence to Stephan and is on his feet in an instant, but he waits for the code word that means Esca’s sub defenses were breeched in the dream before pulling his firearm. Esca considers giving the code just because, but he controls himself, and waves Tommy down.

Marcus struggles to his feet, talking fast, “I didn’t think it would be that big a deal. I just wanted to see what your imagination would fill in. You know, tit for tat. I didn’t mean to offend!”

“What happened?” Stephan demands.

“It doesn’t matter,” Esca snaps at the older man, refusing to look at Marcus as he begins packing everything up. “I’ve had it up to here with you lot anyway. Have a nice life.”

“Don’t go—who’ll train us?”

“Mr. Charles can have you.”

Tommy audibly gasps.

“Who’s Mr. Charles?” Marcus asks.

“He’s—“ Esca stops. He has absolutely no nice thing to say about his rival. He can’t even bullshit it. Angrily, he drags a hand down his face and groans, kicks at the air in front of him. “Never mind.”

“What?”

“I can’t quit.” Esca says, allowing his pain into his voice for a moment. But he quickly controls himself. With the same dignity he clung to during the interview, he says, “You spoke up for me on CNN, and if I don’t actually train you then that’ll be for nothing. So I’ll train you. But just know that I hate you and everything you stand for.”

Marcus’ eyes widen and he finally says, “That’s a little... _intense_. Do I at least get to know why?”

Esca just stares back coldly, unwavering. Tommy fusses with the buttons on his jacket rather than make eye contact with the strangers who naturally look to him next for an explanation.

“...guess not,” Marcus says flatly.

The silence which permeates the room is awkward. Marcus looks like a kicked puppy. The reeling humiliation of what he’d revealed in the dream has faded and now he just thinks that he over reacted maybe. It’s not like what Marcus saw was particularly _revealing_ nor is it a crime to be curious about the wonders of dream share… and it’s kind of flattering that this gorgeous man wants a glimpse into his imagination…

Suppressing a groan into a frustrated sigh, Esca puts the case down, unrolls the tubes, attaches new needles, and hands Marcus one. “Sit down and plug in. We’re going back to finish what you started.”

Marcus does so eagerly and aware of what Esca is doing; _giving him a chance_. Esca keeps his jaw tight and works quickly, before he changes his mind and before Tommy can say anything. He’s never done this before, and he doesn’t know why the fuck he’s doing it now. Completely unprofessional. But hey, it’s just been that kind of day.

|           |           |           |

They go back Under to the beach.

Marcus looks around at the steel colored water and the stormy sky. That is new, Esca’s mood replacing the bright, warm sun of a happy day with the gloom of anger.

“Oh, man,” Marcus says as he eyes the sky, “it’s going to storm. We should head back.”

Esca doesn’t make a move and Marcus looks at him, realizes he’s in a business suit on a beach, then looks down at himself and realizes that he, too, is overdressed for swimming. He frowns. “This is weird. Why are we… Oh,” he relaxes, “Wait. We’re dreaming, aren’t we?”

“You’re getting the hang of it,” Esca concedes, “not many pick it up this fast.”

Marcus shrugs and looks around. The carnival rides are still there, and they are the first thing Esca draws his attention to.

“These aren’t anything. You’re receptionist called me McCarnival earlier, and that’s the end of it. I don’t want you thinking I’m a nutter with carousals in my every thought.”

Marcus snickers and says, “Yeah, that is a little,” he tilts his hand between them to indicate _pervy_ or _unbalanced_. Esca can’t help but snort too, glad to have that assumption cleared away. They begin to walk, their shined shoes kicking up the thick gray sand as they pass the plastic horses and the roller coaster tracks.

“So, um...” the CEO twists and walks backwards for a moment. He has not even projected himself with the cane. Esca groans inwardly as Marcus takes in the scene minus the creepy carnival and smirks, “Wow, so this is you? Whole lotta nothing.”

“Shows what you know about pyscho-analytic theory and subtext.”

“Then explain it to me.”

“Colors. Red represents the subject’s sexual desire. Blue is spirituality. Green is a connection to nature.”

“The red on the carnival rides count?” Marcus asks wickedly with that low-toned voice he used earlier. Esca feels his face heat up and he says, “Debatable.” He knows they are both decidedly NOT looking at the stone in Marcus’ class ring which is green in real life but a stark ruby here in the dream.

“Okay, the chipped green paint on the roofs, that’s you being outdoorsy?”

“Not anymore,” Esca says tightly, “See, it’s aged and fallen into disrepair.”

Marcus looks pleased to learn such a nugget of information. “Okay, what else? Why’s it a beach of all things? What does that mean?”

“Good question. This is Lake Michigan. I grew up here.”

“Ah, really?” Marcus asks with real interest. Esca sighs. “Here and England, of course.”

“Hey, what’s all that?” Marcus points over to the platform of the carousal where a dagger is spinning on its side among a scattering of black beads. Pearls. Esca looks at it dejectedly. Marcus frowns, confused. “That’s weird. What does it mean in psycho-analytic theory?”

“Nothing, it’s my setting totem.”

“Your what?”

“Your totem won’t work if you build the dream, right? So you must train yourself to always, _always_ include a certain element, something that you will never ever see in real life, into every single dream you build so in the case of being pulled into a dream of your creation, you will know it.”

“Oh, right. So… nothing I’ll ever see in real life.”

“Yes, because you’re going to have to kill yourself every time you encounter it. If you make it something you’ll encounter in real life and you try to wake yourself up when you see it, you’re not awake. You’re dead.”

“Right well,” Marcus is in deep thought, “Um…”

“You don’t have to pick something right now; you need to put a lot of thought into this.”

Marcus nods, still thinking.

“It’s best to keep it subtle and it’s key to make it unique,” Esca advises. They fall silent, Marcus thinking and Esca content in watching him think.

Marcus really is a handsome man, his face equal parts strong and symmetrical and unblemished and kind… Esca doesn’t realize he’s staring until green eyes slide up to meet his gaze, twinkling with playfulness as if all work is forgotten, “What else are you going to let me see?”

Breath comes a little tighter but Esca keeps his cool and shoves aside the unfortunate hormonal reactions and reaches for his principles, “This beach is it. This isn’t the get-to-know-everything-about-each-other part of a date; _I’m_ _training you_.”

Marcus holds up his hands, “Whoa, don’t get hostile. I thought—you brought me back here, so I thought maybe you _were_ going to let me get to know you.”

Esca glares up at him, “No. I brought you back here because it’s the perfect example of unconscious world building. This is what’ll happen when illegals pull you Under and step back to let you build the dream yourself. They’ll get a snapshot of your subconscious and use it against you.”

“Right…” Marcus briefly looks disappointed but then he puts it aside and is back to being the diligent student.

Esca finds himself having to beat down a flare of his own disappoint and, gritting his teeth, he looks over at his setting totem. The dagger spins and the black pearls roll, and he sighs, pulls out his gun.

He calls the other man’s name to get his attention. Marcus turns expectantly and then is knocked flat on his back in the sand by the bullet in his heart.


	6. Boys Who Bite

 

**Life Goes On, or Enjoy it While you Can, or Carpe Diem, or Boys Who Bite**

Arthur’s feeling fat--or his off shore accounts are; he’s too drunk to differentiate. He’s totally kicking Eames’ ass at the drinking game, though, so that’s got him in even higher spirits than success and money ever will. Across the table from Arthur, Eames is slumped in his chair with the top five buttons of his shirt undone, his every movement lacking its usual fluidity, sloppy with the alcoholic slosh of celebration.

After months of planning a string of extractions--Sully, Stein, Jacobs, and Saito--they have successfully pulled the first. It’s all stops out now; they won’t stop until the end. Or they’re caught. Or they die.

In short, it’s a hell of a lot of fun and they’ve only gotten started.

Arthur spins his bottle cap on the bottle-ringed wood of the table, vaguely wonders where Cobb has slipped off to, and tries to figure out what in the hell Eames is saying as the forger straightens and sways on the spot.

“… fucking _every time_ and I don’t even want to know where you learned how to do that because no one _actually_ fights with knives anymore, but here you are, Arthur.” He laughs, blurry eyes hardly focusing on him, “pretty little Arthur,” he hiccups and fails when he tries to hold Arthur’s gaze, then he continues, “but you--“here he makes an uncontrolled, _hard_ throwing motion with his arm, and bellows, “THWAP!” he collapses heavily on the little table, laughing and slurring, “ ‘s fucking _lodged_ in the guy’s head so, you see what I mean,it’s _stupid_ to get on your bad side, right?”

“Yeah,” Arthur says, because he thinks Eames is talking about what Arthur can do with knives in a dream. He’s not sure Eames knows he can _only_ do it in dreams, but the flattery is winning out so Arthur won’t correct him. Eames raps the table really hard and toasts his beer bottle high.

“Yeah!” he bellows again, “yeah, of course you do! Because we’re _comrades_ ,” he leans in close enough that Arthur smells the alcohol and peanuts and says, “and comrades don’t… touch each other, I think. I think that’s right... ” he trails off, droopy green eyes searching Arthur’s dark irises, and then turning abruptly, he stumbles off his chair and declares he’s going to take a piss but he stumbles behind the bar into the little kitchen back there and a few moments later, arguing profusely in broken Portuguese, he gets them both thrown out.

Eames is dizzy and about to be sick in the gutter when Arthur looks around and sees Cobb finally coming around the corner to join them. He leaves his nauseated forger and with narrowed eyes, approaches Cobb, “And where have you been?”

Cobb frowns at him, “You’re already drunk?”

“It’s been a few hours. _Already_ is an inaccurate term.”

“Oh,” Cobb looks at his watch in pure surprise.

“What were you doing?” Arthur asks again. He’s too drunk to hide his suspicion very well. He’s thinking of Cobb calling Esca with his Mole Reports. He always knew Cobb was a spy. He’s thinking he should probably just kill Cobb now.

He’s thinking all of this out loud. He’s way more hammered than he realizes.

Cobb clearly understands that drunk-and-uncoordinated-Arthur is still a pretty deadly Arthur when it comes to spies who need to be destroyed, so he is quick to explain, “I called my lawyer, then I called my father in law, and then I was talking to my kids, alright?”

“Oh, _your kids_ , huh?” Arthur asks, “You were talking to your kids for four hours? Gonna hide behind that excuse like a pussy?”

“I _was_ talking to my kids, goddammit! I’m sorry if you’re heartbroken that I stood you up, but unlike _you_ , I actually give a shit about staying in touch with my family!”

“Hey, hey, hey,” that’s Eames, who comes over with wide eyes, all concern, “Wos goin’ on, guys? We’re all buddies here, right?”

“Jesus, Eames, you’re worse off than Art,” Cobb says, noting the forger’s inability to stay upright. He actually huffs a laugh, looking back to Arthur, “You guys really know how to celebrate, don’t you?”

Eames slumps an arm around Cobb’s shoulders, “Hey,” he says, face way too close to Cobb’s who grimaces away from the alcohol breath, “You don’t wanna be callin’ him Art all the time, mate. He’s killed men over less.”

Laughing, Cobb has to fight hard to keep them both upright, “Yeah, okay.”

“No, seriously, have you seen what this mother fucker can do with a knife?” Eames asks with his lips practically on Cobb’s ear but his eyes on Arthur, “No, no, no, _really_. Don’t let the dimples fool you. He’ll slice you up before you know what’s goin’ on.”

“That’s only in dreams, Eames,” Cobb says cringing and twisting his ear away from the hot breath.

“ _YOU’RE_ ONLY IN DREAMS!” Eames bellows, shoving him away. He trips and then he and Arthur both are howling with laughter as Eames lies on the ground on his back. Cobb looks tired and annoyed but he grudgingly joins in on the laughter, shaking his head.

“Is it always like this after we pull off a job? I feel like I’m dealing with a bunch of college jackasses.”

With Cobb’s help, Arthur heaves Eames to his feet and they support him between them. Arthur explains, “I don’t think you understand the significance of what we achieved today, Cobb.” Their celebrations are justly called for; not just _anyone_ can crawl in Sully’s mind and take his secrets and _live to feel the alcohol sloshing in his stomach_.

“The fucker’s had Mac in his head since 2001,” Arthur drawls, “and the older the sub security, the stronger it is. Mac’s training never stops; he’s got moles to find out how we’re getting around his defenses and he comes up with new defenses, gives bi annual updates to anyone under his protection. Basically, if you have him in your head, your subconscious army only gets better with time. _Mac’s sub security ages like a fucking fine wine_ , don’t you get it?”

“Yeah, you’re preaching to the choir, here, Art,” Cobb says, reminding Arthur that he knows this stuff better than anyone, that it’s really only because of his presence that they even managed to survive extracting from someone like Sully in the first place, because Cobb’s one of Mac’s shields. Or he was.

Arthur narrows his eyes at him, “Does Mac know what you’re doing now?”

Cobb shrugs.

Arthur suddenly can’t stop laughing and when he has breath enough, he says, “He’s going to want to kill you when he finds out! You’re a _liability_ to him now, and to Mac nothing in the world is as bad as a _liability_. He’s going to be so fucking pissed.”

Cobb doesn’t find it all that funny, but Arthur just can’t stop laughing.

|           |           |           |

Its morning in LA and Esca’s mind moves from sleep to awake abruptly, an unforgiving sensation, leaving him completely disoriented. Long gone are the days when Esca can wake slowly, drifting up to wakefulness with time to remember where he is, who he is, that he’s been asleep and it’s time to wake up. Frequent use of somniacinatophin has direct effects on his natural sleep process. He no longer has a dream unless the drugs are in his system and he no longer floats in that lazy in between place. He’s either asleep or awake and waking up is never, ever pleasant.

Just another thing he sacrificed for Blue War Shields Inc.

He groans, rolls over, attempts to reclaim sleep but it’s gone. He no longer goes easily back and forth between the two unless he’s got a needle in his wrist. He’s awake now, like it or not. He lays there still, in a fit of defiance, with the pillow over his head. He does not want to get up and start the day. He’s like a kid dreading school because of a math test.

Only this isn’t a math test, it’s a Marcus test.

MFA. Marcus Fucking Aquila.

No one has a right to be that sexy _and_ that kind. Men as strong and good looking as him are supposed to be douche bags or actual morons… or at the very least they are supposed to be straight and homophobic towards slender gay guys in very good suits.

Yet in the past handful of lessons, Marcus has proven to be kind and intelligent and has taken no pains to hide that he is interested in him… The way he grins, the way he winks, the way he constantly tries to come up with excuses to leave them alone together in the office despite the laws which protect the integrity of shared dreams.

Esca mastered reading subtext in dreams years ago, but he wouldn’t have to be an expert in psychoanalytic theory to see how interested Marcus is in him. The names of movies playing in projected theaters… the things gay couples are doing in booths in the backs of restaurants… the greater than average amount of red in all the clothes… But then there’s the unashamed way Marcus looks at him when they’re in a dream.

It’s not like in real life, when he maintains an ancient sense of propriety and schools his face into friendliness in front of his uncle and all the assistants. Down under, when they’re alone in an intimate subconscious which is practically dipping with want, Marcus dares to stare, to reach out and touch him in little innocent ways…

It’s an interest Esca does not want.

Eagle Standard Pharmaceuticals is _not_ want Esca wants. Why couldn’t Marcus have become a career soldier or something—anything—else? Why couldn’t he leave his uncle in charge of Eagle Standard? If he did, then he would just be a victim of blood-relation, out of his control. Lots of people hate their uncles, why can’t MFA be one of them?

Because if Marcus was disassociated from that company, Esca could enjoy this thing happening. Oh man would he be enjoying it—a gorgeous celebrity, the legendary MFA, and the rush he puts in Esca’s blood, the heat in his skin, the butterflies swarming his guts…But those Grecian muscles and those eyes and that smile, those things are Eagle Standard now, nothing but a powerful drug in a yellow pill bottle on Dad’s nightstand, Mom crying herself to sleep every night…

The memory springs up out of nowhere, Esca slams into it like a brick wall, and Marcus Aquila does that.

Unacceptable.

Esca’s cell phone is ringing from where it’s charging on his dresser. Abandoning his attempts to ignore that a new day has begun, Esca sits up, fingers the wolf’s fang hanging from a chain about his neck. It’s his totem, and its secrets are right, so he’s at least in his own dream. His cell phone is still ringing. He untangles himself from his sheets and crosses the room on stiff uncoordinated legs to answer it. He looks around and does not see his setting totem. He tries to make the sun go back down. He gets neither, so he answers the phone, “Mac,”

“I’m on my way up,” it’s Tommy and he sounds worried.

“Why?” Esca asks, balking. “What’s happening?”

“Haven’t you been watching the news?”

Esca’s stomach drops, “What?” he rushes from the room to his big flat screen TV and turns it on. He watches the breaking news about Sully, the oil tycoon, having recently gone to the police with suspicions that he’s been the victim of extractors. For someone with a mind as well fortified as Sully’s, it seems unlikely that even the craziest of the illegals would even attempt it, let alone get away with it. But Sully is convinced that whoever they are, they have taken his secrets.

Theoretically, an extractor extracts without the victim being any more the wiser, but sub security, even if it fails, at least manages to make the victim aware of the transgression. Esca’s knees give out and he sinks down onto them as he watches. He’s on his haunches on his knees in the middle of the floor when Tommy lets himself in.

“How could this happen?” Esca asks.

“Cobb,” Tommy says, guiltily.

“Cobb,” Esca repeats, livid, “ _What did you do, Tommy_?”

“Okay,” with a sigh and a tousle of his blond curls, the man gives in with the truth, “We swore him in as an undercover agent.” Then, talking fast as Esca nearly explodes, “These circumstances created the perfect opportunity for him to convince the most dangerous illegal dreamers to trust that he is truly cut off from the company, and because they would value him for being so personally close to you, he could get in closer than any unknown ever could--“

“How could you do this to me?”

Tom’s shoulders sag just a little, and his eyebrows crinkle closer together, “It sounds like a betrayal to you, Mac, but the fact remains that I am an SDRA agent. I have a duty to help detain the illegals wherever possible.”

“I pay you five times what agents make, Tom!” Esca yells, “THAT MEANS YOU’RE LOYALTY LIES WITH ME!”

“YOU PAY ME TO PROTECT THE SECRET OF PROTECTING SECRETS, NOT TO BE YOUR DAMNED LAP-DOG!” Tom yells back, a rare moment outside his usual kindness. Blinking, looking slightly ashamed, he adds in a calmer voice, “I acted for the good of safe secrets everywhere. I thought Cobb could _help_ us get the untouchable masterminds!”

“But he killed his wife!” Esca bellows, “He was _already_ an illegal when you helped him escape!”

“I don’t think he killed her,” Tom answers promptly. “Not on purpose anyway. They didn’t know what they were doing--“

“That’s no excuse--“

“No. There is no excuse, but that’s the _reason_!” Tom snatches the cellphone from Mac’s hand where he is dialing. “Cobb wouldn’t have been of use to anyone in prison, and free he was hugely valuable to us, so we let him go.”

“ _You_ let him go,” Esca grumbles bitterly, doubting there had been time to take it to higher ranks of the agency and argue for permission.

“But first I swore him in, gave him a badge and a crash course on undercover work. He was _supposed_ to infiltrate your brother and that mysterious partner of his and bring them to us.”

Balking, Esca pays attention, anger falling away. “Arthur?” a ringing sound starts in his ears, “…did Cobb find him?”

“In his first messages to us he said he did,” Tom says, causing Esca to reel in disbelief. He tries to picture his best friend of ten years talking to his estranged brother and can’t. Because he has no idea what Arthur looks like these days.

“…a few days ago, he failed to check in with us,” Tom is saying, “And now this.” He worries his bottom lips as he nods to the television screen, a lamenting shine in his eye and shake of his head. “He originally trained Sully, remember? His mind wouldn’t have been recognized as a threat. It’s the only way they could have gotten past defenses that old.”

“Which means Cobb entered a dream,” Esca finishes, righteous anger surging through him, “Like the _fucker_ illegal-dreamer that he is! This is YOUR fault!”

The accusation doesn’t faze the bodyguard so much as the idea of Cobb’s betrayal. Tom looks like a kicked puppy at the screen where his little spy-mission has so horribly backfired on him. He speaks up, a hope-filled voice, “Maybe he was put in a position where he had no choice but to dream.”

With a harrumph and a quick steal of his phone back from Tom’s hand, Esca says, “He joined the easy-money team, Tom. Trust me.”

|           |           |           |

Camera’s flash in the crowd below the podium as Esca finishes his statement, officially making it known that Dom Cobb is behind Sully’s extraction, and that he, Esca, strongly recommends anyone else under his protection to hire around-the-clock bodyguards to be paid for by BWS.

“We assure you that these body guards will only be temporary,” he says calmly into the microphone, “We have always prided ourselves with our ability to evolve as the criminals evolve and remain one step ahead of them. Mr. Cobb will soon have fallen as far behind as any other illegal dreamer. In the near future his knowledge of my systems will be useless, _he_ will be useless, and he will eventually be caught and brought to justice. Thank you.”

He turns from the podium to walk down to the waiting car, ignoring the barrage of questions being shouted at him, giving the flashing camera’s his most serious expression, lifting his hand for a wave before ducking into the privacy of tinted windows. He sags into the seat, pinching his nose, “Fuck me”” he swears.

“If that’s a suggestion, I’ll take a rain check on it for now, thanks,” snickers a slightly French-accented, familiar, and un-welcome voice at his side. Esca startles, having assumed the body there was Tommy, but Lee Charles, tall, dark and outrageously sexy, is the one who looks at ease on the seat next to him.

“Sorry, Mac,” Tommy’s gentle voice sounds out from the front before the curly-haired man turns around in the passenger seat, doleful eyes apologetic, smile impish, “He walked up right up to my window in the middle of the crowd and insisted that I give him the seat.”

“So, what, you just _obeyed_ him?” Esca spits venomously, “First Cobb and now this? I should fire you.”

“He doesn’t pose a threat,” Tommy explains, eyebrows hitching closer together in mild-worry at the threat of his termination. It makes Esca feel bad, though he’ll never let on his regret. “I had to let him in or risk causing a scene right in the middle of your statement. I thought you’d prefer to lie low.”

Esca grumbles, retracting his threat to cut Tommy loose because, dammit, that’s exactly what he prefers. His last encounter with Lee--over the phone right after Luke Aquila spoke with him in the CNN dressing room--hadn’t gone well.

_\--Hey, Lee. Fuck you._

_\--Come on, Mac, don’t be like that. I thought we were still friends._

_Flaring, Esca had laughed in his outrage, -- Fucking hell, Lee! Friends don’t hang friends out to dry!_

_\--How did I do that?_

_\--Does this sound familiar? I assure you, it could not have possibly been Cobb’s serum which caused her mental state. Horned Chief Pharmaceuticals makes the world’s most stable compounds. We will, of course, look into it, but there must be another explanation; we are the only producer of somniacinatophin which has never, in its history, been linked to unsavory side-effects whatsoever. I know they like to push limitations at BWS and if the serum is to blame, it will only be because it was being abused in some way._

_\--_ _Jesus, Mac, you’re going to get insulted by that? You expect me to let them think I sell unstable dreaming serum? If so, you’re out of your fucking mind!_

 -- _BUT YOU AS GOOD AS SAID THEY FUCKED WITH THE COMPOUND ON MY AUTHORTIY!_

_\--But they did, didn’t they?_

_\--NO!_

_\--I don’t believe that. I know you. You’ll do anything to get the upper hand. You and Dom were always so insane, taking risks like daily vitamins. You might not have insisted that they tamper with the serum, but I know you gave them the green light. I_ know _you did_ , _and you know why I know? Because they say that’s what the illegals are doing these days and you always need to know every trick in their bag._

 _\--Of course I do, Lee, it’s my mother-fucking_ job _to know what they’re going to do before they do it! I swear to God, if they sink me on this, I’m taking you down, too._

_\--Fuck you, Mac._

Now Lee is grinning at Esca, and it’s a sick grin, it’s an I Knew It And You Are So Fucked grin, “So I got an interesting report from a toxicologist.”

Esca closes his eyes, because he doesn’t know what Lee’s little report says but it cannot be good. It must be something Cobb was doing behind Esca’s back. Doom settles like a weight on Esca’s shoulder blades, doubling him over even further and he just wants to curl up and die.

Or bash Cobb’s face in with a crowbar. That mother-fucker. That goddamned mother fucker who started all of this.

“An extra sedative with the compound, Mac? Really?” Lee shakes his head, clicking his tongue. “That’s not good.”

Esca is seeing red around the edges of his vision. His chest is tight with shallow breathes. He thinks he’s going to be sick. “I. Did. Not. Authorize. That.”

 “Regardless, you let it happen. Which hints that something is lacking in the management of your most dangerous department. Heads are going to have to roll. Who’s in charge of your research and development team, anyway?” Lee tilts his head in mock pensiveness and then his grin stretches toward his ears, “Oh, yeah, you are. Told you it was a bad idea to run the whole thing AND keep playing with your head.”

“I demand to see the toxicology report with my own eyes.”

“You think I would lie to you about this?”

“Well I _am_ speaking to the man who supplies somniatrophin to his father’s main competitor.”

“Not fair,” the French-American purrs, bored, “my father is an American asshole.”

“He’s a fucker copy-cat is what he is,” Esca grumbles.

“A Fucker copy-cat who is benefiting from your mistakes right now,” Lee shoots back, holding out a vanilla folder with the coroner’s report in it.

Esca snatches it, “Which is why I think you might be making this extra sedative shit up so that I’ll be ruined and the other half of your inheritance can finally catch up to your mom’s drug company.”

Silence falls as Esca studies the reports. The car pulls to a stop and Esca slaps the papers back into Lee’s lap, voice hard with anger, “I demand the same tests be run by another toxicologist not hired by _you_.”

Lee laughs, “Never trust anyone do you, Mac?”

Refusing to comment on that, Esca taps his driver on the shoulder, “Take him back where he belongs. And never let him in my car again.” The second half he aims at Tommy, who nods.

Esca starts to exit the vehicle but Lee catches his elbow, amazing boyish charm ablaze as he smiles, “Wait a second, let’s have lunch.”

He slumps into his seat, dropping his head back in astounded laughter, reluctantly enchanted by this fucker who holds in his hand all the evidence he needs to put the final nail in Esca’s coffin, “ _Really_ , Lee?”

The man puts on his most handsome smile, “I have a proposition I think you should hear.”

|           |           |           |

“Do you remember when we were here with Mal and Dom last?” Lee asks with a smile at the sun-warmed tennis-courts visible across the lawn from their luncheon table. His dark skin is incredible in the sunlight, warm and smooth and it would probably still be sharp and zingy against Esca’s nose, his tongue.

Leaving the recent past where it belongs, Esca unfolds his napkin and purses his lips against the memory of a double date that happened years ago. Fun, easy times… hopeful times when he hadn’t alone…  “That was a long time ago. What is it you want to propose to me, Lee?”

The manufacturer huffs down at his plate, but then pulls an easy smile back into place. “You are tense. Understandable, so I will cut to my point. When this toxicology report gets out you will be ruined, unless you can present signed wavers showing the Cobb’s knew the risks of your request. Of course you have no such thing. But there is a way that I can help you avoid the hatchet.”

“I’m listening.”

Lee squints out over the grass again, shrugs. “Perhaps it was a mistake in our manufacturing after all--a recall for your shipment only. As our deal provides you with serums straight out of my lab to yours, you can easily say you’ve trashed the rest of it, and none of my other customers have anything to worry about. All is well.”

Esca really can’t breathe. “Y-you’ll do that--Lee, for real?” Suddenly that time, back when Lee was fun and gorgeous and someone Esca wanted for himself, feels like it’s a lot closer than five years. He wonders why he let it end.

“My company can afford to take the blow. After all, accidents happen. That way you provided your dreamers with drugs you have trusted since the birth of your company. You had no way of knowing it was polluted, no reason for wavers in the first place.”

Tingling head to foot, Esca reaches across the table, laughing in such relief that he feels a little dizzy. Lee’s hand is warm under his, “Oh god, Lee. That’s--“

“Hold on, my sweet, I expect something for my trouble.”

“Well, I should think so,” Esca says in his promise-voice, inching his chair a little closer to the good-looking Frenchman. He’s remembering the way Lee fit so perfectly into his life, teasing Mal like a big brother, giving Dom tough love when he wasn’t ready to be a father, reaching for Esca every time he was near, long thin arms circling and holding and loving… “I will be in debt to you--and you know how I like to settle scores with friends.”

Lee’s grin deepens into one of intense satisfaction. “So I am your friend again?”

“If you say your drug was unbalanced, then yes. You are my very best friend.”

“Very best friends do things for one another, do they not?”

“Lee, what is it you’re getting at? Do I owe you the fuck of your life or don’t I?”

“The fuck of my life I have had,” Lee pronounces with a sudden matter-of-fact air. “I need secrets. Marcus Aquila’s secrets. You are in his head daily, are you not?”

Esca’s skin flashes cold, and his tone of voice drops to deadly levels. “What?” Memories of ease and comfort singe and burn away orange at edges to the reveal the nights spent beside Lee without a touch, terse words and ignored phone calls the next day.

“You are already inside. Just pick something up for me, couldn’t you? It would be terribly easy. Do you deny this?”

“Extracting,” he practically mouths the word, unable to breathe again. “You want me to--“

“Only whatever is of worth that you might happen to see while inside,” he winks, “I want to help you, Esca. Truly I do.” He reads Esca’s doubt and his eyes drop to the table, brows low with the weight of confession. “I know we let things pull us apart, but I _cared_ for you. And I always will. What we had, it leaves marks that never go away.” Esca sighs, troubled, “And if you do this, it will assist my company in making our comeback from the scandal; I cannot do this without a fail-safe, Esca. I will save you, but you must save me in return.”

Esca swallows, palms sweaty, heart pounding, confusion wrecking his confidence. Stealing from a client? It is unthinkable, dishonest, and just plain illegal! What would Marcus think of him if he--

Breath gusts out of Esca in one cough when he catches himself worried what the stupid American goody-two shoes would think. (Esca is never as European as he becomes when Lee is around). He reminds himself he could care less for Marcus Aquila’s good opinion.

It still does not make him any warmer to the idea of being a straight-up thief like Arthur, though. “I don’t know, Lee…”

“You have worked so hard, and you deserve so much. You cannot let them take from you what you have built for yourself. Think about it,” Lee says easily as his cell phone begins to ring. Esca focuses on the plate of food before him, but does not have an appetite, does not even see it. His mind is racing with this moral dilemma--to peek or not to peek?

“Oh--excuse me, Esca,” Lee says past his phone. “This I must handle. You will consider my proposal? I’ll give you a night to think it over.”

Nodding mutely, he is left alone at a table for two, and Esca considers the easiest path to take: to accept the deal, to swipe everything in one idiot’s head and save himself… It is an attractive notion on several levels--survival, revenge, and a taste of the wild side that his dumb-ass brother is so addicted to.

But the sacrifices that it entails… breaking his honor, betraying a good man, stooping to Arthur’s level. Just another fuck-up.

No.

Unacceptable.

… Right?

|           |           |           |

Outside the restaurant, Tom opens Esca’s car door and Esca gets in, but when the man goes around for the other side, Esca snaps at him when the door opens, “No. You’re in the front. That’s what you get.”

Tom’s shoulder’s sag, “Oh, come on. How was I to know you had put him on your shit list? Last I knew anything about it, you two were still chums.”

“Front,” is all Esca has to say to that. Tom grumbles, shuts the door and climbs into the passenger seat with a subdued but amiable greeting to the driver. Esca’s last nerve is fraying dangerously. First Aquila thinks he can just save BWS without being asked and does nothing but dredge up Esca’s rotten childhood at every turn, and now Lee is back teasing Esca with a simple fix, an empty promise to return things to the way they were before this mess.

But life can never go back. Mal is dead and Cobb is gone, just like Arthur, and Lee is never going to stick around as long as he did the first time. Not if he still expects Esca to put some blinders on and ignore the real world.

Right as the car pulls from the curb, Esca’s phone rings. He’s relieved when it’s not Lee, but simultaneously anxious that it’s Aquila. A small and paranoid part of Esca wonders if Marcus somehow got wind of his immoral deliberations about maybe selling his secrets to France.

“MacCunoval.”

“Hey, Mac,” is Marcus’ smiling voice, “So about our lesson later today…”

A new and entirely NOT small part of Esca is suddenly and dreadfully sure that Marcus means to cancel his deal with Esca. Regardless of grudges against the Aquila family name, what they are doing is damn good PR, and, what’s more, if he cancels, Esca loses his chance to help Lee out… Which he won’t do. He wouldn’t.

 _Shouldn’t_ let someone take this hit for him, save him, return his credibility, his life to any semblance of the way it was… shouldn’t do that…

Right?

“We’re going to have to postpone until a later date,” Marcus is saying, “Maybe in the morning?”

“No! The lessons have to be every single day for the duration of the initial training. That’s _paramount_.” He has already explained this to that stupid secretary when they were making this deal. Jesus Christ.

“Oh, yeah,” Marcus says, “Well, fuck. I’ve got this thing to go to tonight.”

Esca huffs, “I don’t know what you expect me to say. You need my permission to skip school today, sweetheart? Well, fuck you, it’s not going to happen. ” Marcus’ responding laugh is unexpected and rather nice sounding, deep and sincere and Esca continues, in kinder tones, “You asked me to train you and that’s what I’m going to do. Cutting corners will only come back and bite me in the ass.”

 _Like now_. Esca closes his eyes, shakes his head in regret, wanting to kick himself for allowing things with the Cobb’s to get so sloppy as to procrastinate all the paperwork until after the event. That’s what happens when you make friends and trust they will always sign the wavers just as soon as they get around to it.

“I can’t cancel tonight. It’s important.”

“My lesson takes all of fifteen minutes, Aquila. Christ, you couldn’t even spare that much time?”

“I have physical therapy and then a meeting that is likely to take me right up until it’ll be time to leave. I’ll probably be getting into my tux in the limo.”

“Limo? What are you up to tonight?” God, he can’t believe he let that sound like… like he _cares_.

“A Gala dinner up in Paul Placidus’ mansion, black tie; I’m sort of the guest of honor.”

“Congratulations,” Esca rolls his eyes, but the smile is too strong to keep from his face. Paul Placidus--arrogant son of a bitch, but also the world’s leader of charitable organizations, Use Money to Help the World Be Better kind of things… To be his guest of honor, Marcus must have saved a small third world country form starving to death.

“You’re rich, is there any chance you’ll be at this Gala, too?”

“Do I _seem_ like the charitable type?” Esca scathes, stung to be reminded that he hasn’t been invited this year. But, then again (and Esca is only just now realizing this) he hasn’t been charitable with his billions since Lee dumped him.

“No, I guess not…” Marcus huffs, not sounding pleased, but then shaking it off, “Okay, I was hoping you could come with me. Maybe we could do the lesson in the car ride there?”

“I--“ Esca starts, but sighs. Dammit it.

“Be my plus one,” Marcus insists, so fucking adorably that Esca hates him. Hates that he can _see_ Marcus’ shining green eyes and quirked lips. He’s a handsome fucker and knows it.

“Since you’re assistant evidently didn’t start planning your day until halfway through it, I guess I don’t have a choice.”

“Great! I’ll see you tonight.”

Esca disconnects and groans. He knows exactly why part of him agreed to that… that weak, pathetic part of him that wants to be held at night… And he knows why the other part did, too. Because Lee is probably going to be there, capable of curing him of headaches, ulcers, and anxiety attacks all in one publically announced _Whoops_!

It can all be over just as fast as it began.

It’s despicable… but Esca’s just not entirely sure if he’s going to walk away from the opportunity.

|           |           |           |

In a hotel room on the other coast, the clock says that the people of the capital have already eaten lunch, yet it feels like an early morning for the three men cramped in the same room, who have been on the other side of the globe and who took a Red Eye over the ocean. Cobb keeps yawning. Arthur catches every one of them but keeps his jaw together, ears popping as he pinches the bridge of his nose and squeezes his eyes shut. He hates yawning. So undignified.

Eames, though, emerges from the bathroom fresh and wide awake, combs his loose hair back from his forehead and runs a hand over his freshly shaven face. He’s bright and gorgeous and such a fucking morning person. Arthur has always admired that in his friend; something about it screams _let me make this world my bitch_ , and Arthur can think of few traits sexier for a man to have. “How’s this, darling? Business casual?”

Arthur grins and corrects the shirt tag that is sticking out of the brand new polo shirt, a shade of salmon pink only Eames can pull off. The skin at the back of his neck is still warm from hot shower water, forcing Arthur to be self-conscious of his perpetually cold fingers. “Shouldn’t you wear slacks? What’d he say about jeans?”

“Oh, jeans are allowed, told it to me like it was a perk to being his personal shadow. The wanker.”

Arthur snorts, soapy, shower-fresh Eames filling his nose and mouth, and thumps his best friend on his thick shoulder. “Good to go, _Mr. Shane_.”

“You’re running late,” Cobb warns.

“Going,” Eames assures, lingering near Arthur, who has taken it upon himself to tug the shelf wrinkles out of the shirt. It’s a pointless endeavor without an ironing board, but the pair of them take the minute to try anyway, to extend this brief married-couple improv they’ve found themselves enjoying immensely.

Eames’ shoulders are firm and warm through the thin material of his shirt under Arthur’s hands. Sometimes they go so long without so much as brushing shirt sleeves that Arthur starts to forget to think of Eames as a _solid_ thing.

It’s completely stupid, but touching Eames is always a revelation. _Hey, he’s… real. Or something._

“Okay,” Arthur says, taking the hint from Cobb’s pointed look that it is really time for Eames to go. In a fit of he-doesn’t-know-what, he pops a hand across Eames’ denim-clad ass the way his mother did his father in Arthur’s very earliest memories. “You keep those dream fuckers from getting to Stein.”

Eames jumps, and then grins warmly, _nearly blushing_. Arthur would call him on it if he didn’t have his own blush to contend with.

“I’ll be home for dinner,” Eames says within the same thread of play, dropping a wink as he shrugs on his coat and grabs the keys to his new business car. Arthur and Cobb laugh the sexual tension away and the forger becomes all business, “Two o’clock, don’t be late.”

“Yeah,” Cobb promises as Arthur lifts a finger to show what he thinks about such an implication. Eames leaves them alone in the new body guard suite, and they set to completing their disguises. Arthur catches a drop of hair die before it runs all the way down the side of Cobb’s face, and the extractor looks up at him and winks coyly, “Relax, Art. Once we’re in, it’ll be a piece of cake, just like Sully.”

Arthur inhales deeply and nods, cleaning his fingers on his janitor jumpsuit and pointlessly adjusting the collar. Cobb is a little new to be reassuring _him,_ but their last minute decision to infiltrate Stein’s new body-guard position (pure dumb luck and _shining_ genius on Eames’ part) is a little nerve-wracking for Arthur, who prefers to stick to the plan wherever possible.

Cobb is so calm right now that Arthur sort of hates him for it. But then again, Cobb proved himself to be a fucking genius at throwing the plan out the window and winging it back in the middle off the Sully job when Mal showed up. He’s sort of like Eames in that way… Arthur reminds himself that everything will work out like it always does and that he and Eames will be celebrating, on a second high, laughing together with that on-fire feeling…

Realizing the look Cobb is giving him, and that at the thought of Eames just now his thoughts had swiftly dropped into pleasant things that make him grin at the door that the man just left through, it feels necessary for Arthur to say something to his astute new friend, “Shut up.”


	7. Black Tie Formal

**Disguised Boundaries, or Penrose Stairs, or Mazes, or Black Tie Formal**

“Mac, Stein is on line one.”

“Oh, thank god, put him through,” Esca says eagerly, checking the time, calculating that because the sun is only just going down here in LA, it must be well into Stein’s relaxing and drinking hours in DC. He hurries to punch the speaker-phone button.

“Mac?” an older gentleman’s voice breaks out of the speakers, and Esca falls into the cheery personae reserved for paying clients who aren’t in a hurry to be somewhere and would appreciate a friendly chat along with their service, even though Stein turned-coat and went with Mr. Charles when the fucker opened business.

“Stein! Busy man, I’ve been trying to get in touch with you all day. Have you heard about Sully?”

“Yes… Fucking lunatic. I’d like to know why Cobb wasn’t ever put behind bars.”

“He was,” Esca grits out miserably, “but they couldn’t hold him with the evidence.”

“Fucking system. Makes me sick.”

“That’s why I’m calling, Stein. Even though you technically aren’t my clientele anymore, Cobb will still come for you. You and Sully were the only two people he ever trained who have anything worth stealing. You need to get around-the-clock bodyguards.”

“Already did,” Stein says smugly. “Days before your announcement this morning. Thought that was the obvious move to make when Cobb skipped town. What are people fucking retarded now?”

Esca snorts with the fondness he feels for this kindred soul. “This entire thing is a mess. Good thinking with the body guards, Stein, that’s why I’ve always liked you. You’re one of the smart ones. But listen up, mere mortals like body guards can be gotten past, so I’m offering you a free lesson right here over the phone. You interested? Might save your life.”

“Aw, Mac. You’re making me feel bad for switching to lower prices.”

Esca snorts. “And yet you have to dish out for extra bodyguards anyway. Should have just stayed with me.”

“Oh, I got Charles to pay for them, but I went ahead and picked up Shane here on your dime. Here, son, tell Mac thanks for your job.”

Some distance from the phone, a gruff southern accent says “thankee sir”, and someone else, nearer and far more female, asks Stein if he’d like more bourbon, then Stein is laughing into the phone again, “Anyway, I appreciate your call. Damned nice of you to check in like this after all these years.”

Grinning happily, Esca makes a noise to show his glee, “Yeah, I bet that bastard Charles doesn’t even know your name, does he? You keep that in mind next lesson, and if you ever want to come home, my door is always open to my first students, you know that.”

“You have no shame. Listen to you buttering me up. It’s almost working. What have you got?”

Snorting with slight amusement, Esca gets down to business, “All right, you’re a very special case, Stein; your mind might follow Mr. Charles’ orders, but the whole army went through _my_ boot camp, and Cobb knows that. There’s a chance he can slip through the seams with a snap-shot gambit that reverts you to a time when you trusted BWS. This is going to sound funny, but be wary of any dreams you might have of the past, or any dreams that resemble the past, you hear me? Don’t trust anyone or anything that makes you think of Dominic Cobb.”

Stein snorts and Esca says, “But you already knew that. It hasn’t been tested yet, but the logic is sound. Attach a setting totem to Cobb. I want you to start meditating regularly on the man wearing a hula skirt or purple troll hair something ridiculous like that, just for laughs. That way, if he shows up with any dignity it’s the real Cobb and your army is triggered. Sound good?”

Stein is chuckling, “I forgot how much I liked you, Mac. You’re a smart man. If only you were Jewish I’d introduce you to my daughter.”

“Yeah, if only I was Jewish,” Esca snickers privately, shaking his head. “I don’t doubt she’s a lovely girl. Any other holes in those Sealed techniques you’d like me to patch up before I let you go? A slow response to environment change? A shaky grasp of large scale weapons manifestation?”

“You haven’t changed, Mac.”

“My job. Hey, take care.”

“You, too.”

He disconnects the call and falls back against his desk, shaking his head. Someone knocks and enters carrying a garment bag. “The suit you requested has arrived, sir,” she says. “And the driver has called, they are five minutes away.”

“Shit. Thanks.”

|           |           |           |

The limo is waiting for Esca when he gets downstairs. He stifles a groan. His bodyguard, in what the man calls _his streets_ (which are jeans and the same black leather jacket he’s been wearing for five years) opens the car door like a chauffeur, smirking knowingly at the black tie and expensive suit Esca elected to wear at the absolute last minute.

Ignoring Tommy, Esca hands in his PASIV first, and then slides into the car. Only Marcus is waiting inside, stupidly good looking in a tailored-to-fit-perfectly suit, and smiling almost shyly. Esca’s heart jumps at the sight, but then he ignores him and frowns at the empty seats, not letting the door close behind him, “Where’s Luke?”

“Uncle hates black tie formal.”

“Stephan?”

Marcus checks his watch, “Making his famous lamb dinner while Berry White puts him and his wife in the mood.”

Esca isn’t amused. He silently motions for Tom, who diligently shuts the door behind him and then makes his way to the front passengers where he slides in without further invitation. The divide is down, so he looks over his shoulder and nods a greeting to Marcus.

Marcus gapes and sounds scandalized but mostly disappointed as he says, “ _oh come on_. He doesn’t have to watch us like we’re children.”

“It’s the law, Marcus,” Esca snaps. “You need someone to keep vigilance over the integrity of the dream. I’ve _told_ you that!”

“We’re in a car, though!” Marcus cries, “We’ll be going seventy down the highway the whole time, kinda hard for someone to slip in through the window and join us in the dream, don’t you think?”

“You never know, the driver could pull over once we’re asleep.”

“Well, that’s what Tom’s here for, right?”

“Right,” Esca and Tom say at once.

Marcus sighs, clearly annoyed by Esca’s never-ending suspicion of all of the Eagle Standard employees, and gives an unintelligible grumble. Esca feels a flare of righteousness at the thought of taking his secrets. It’s only a spark of heat in his blood, and then Esca is left wondering who the hell he has become these days.

As if he could actually crack into MFA’s secrets and then pretend nothing happened…

Except it would be easy to put the session off until the last five minutes of the ride, so that Marcus could limp on into the party and Esca could fake an emergency that takes him back home before any guilt could give him away. Lee could have the secrets, and then everything would be fixed, and Esca could have his life back….

_No._

Hands a little shaky, the shield busies himself setting up the PASIV on the seat next to him so that it can be used before his strength of character fails him. “Recite the easy home test to detect somnicinotophine in your system.”

“Why don’t you ever just say SomNiCin?”

“SomNiCin is _your_ name brand. It’s not the drug I use. Get familiar with your clientele. _I’m_ supplied by Horned Chief.”

“ _Lee Charles_?”

“He’s a good guy.”

Marcus huffs indignantly. Esca’s teeth set on edge. “He gives me good deals.”

“What and I can’t? Jesus all this time I thought I was helping my biggest client. I can’t _believe_ you’ve been supporting my main competitor as you train me!”

“Well, I fuck him, too. Gotta problem with that?” Esca snaps loudly.

Marcus is silenced. Esca’s triumph is short lived as he realizes the severe level of disappointment rising in his gut. He cleans his wrist and inserts the needle, trying not to notice the way the ex-soldier seems to have turned off completely now that Esca is off limits. For the first time since meeting him, Marcus Aquila is treating Esca with cool, indifferent professionalism.

It suddenly feels like celebrity has only ever been showing interest as part of his version of pleasing the client, like when Esca turns cheery and chatty for Stein. Just a way to make the clients happy; Marcus didn’t actually _want_ him. Why would he? It was a lie. Just business. Typical.

_Good job not trusting him; you knew it’d be something like this._

It makes Esca’s fingers unsteady as he presses the plunger. As the paradox dream envelops them, the last thought Esca has in the car is Lee’s sultry promise-voice,

_Just business? Then crush him and get back on top where you belong._

|           |           |

“Mac called him, he’s expecting you,” Eames warns the second Arthur and Cobb are in the room. Stein is out cold on the bed, as per planned. Arthur reels at the news, and Eames is quick to stem the panic attack, “They spoke for five minutes, mainly about me.”

“But why call him personally?” Cobb asks, narrowing his eyes and clicking his teeth in thought. “Did he share a secret technique?”

“Well, they didn’t talk figures,” Eames explains, “and I doubt Mac gave anything up for free.”

Arthur snorts and Cobb laughs, agrees. Mac _never_ gives anything for free.

“So it was just Mac trying to win back a big head client; no big deal, right?” Cobb asks.

Cobb nods, jaw tight. Arthur takes a loud, deep breath. “Better go with plan B, though, just in case. You ready, Cobb?”

Cobb nods, looking shaky. Eames claps him on the shoulder, “Remember this is the Stein job, okay? Not to be confused with Jacobs or Saito, right?” They planned them all at the same time; it’s a bit like studying for four exams all at once.

“Jesus, Eames, I know.”

“It can get confusing for newbies,” Eames says gently, to form a safe space wherein Cobb can come clean about his incompetency.

“Lookit, I didn’t get confused on the Sully job, right?” Cobb snaps, offended.

“True,” Eames responds calmly, “but this is plan B, mate. Didn’t go over it as much. Remember plan B?”

Arthur chortles, catching onto him, showing his dimples, “Cobb remembers it, Eames. Do you?”

Caught trying to get Cobb to repeat the plan in his self-defense and thus refresh Eames’ memory without him asking like a dolt, Eames looks away, embarrassed, and shrugs with as much dignity as he can hang onto. “It’s been a while since we covered it.”

Cobb chuckles. Eames’ hackles rise, and he longs for the days when he and Arthur would work with a couple of imbeciles and he, Eames, could charm them into thinking he is the man of great wisdom. Cobb, though, is just too fucking smart for that. And handsome. And nearer Arthur in age. And he can make Arthur smile. Like he’s doing right now while they share a look that says _can you believe this guy_?

“You’re on point so nothing really changes for you, anyway,” Arthur says when he checks his watch and sees they don’t have time to run through the plan. “Just be ready to get us outta here.”

Eames doesn’t like this, but can’t argue. The extractor puts the unconscious mark Under first, and in a flash Eames remembers part of plan B. They’re allowing him to construct his own dream space, something the forger himself hasn’t done but once before with a very shaky outcome. Eames isn’t sure about this Plan B.

Arthur, the acting forger, nods curtly with his nostrils narrow, giving away his rigid control over his own nerves. Eames’ chest constricts with sudden panic, sudden certainty that this is complete madness. This isn’t a job to practice faces on. “Arthur,” he says lowly.

“No, I got it,” he says stubbornly. Eames isn’t convinced until Arthur is prone on the bed with the needle in his arm. The young man looks up at him with his usual smirk and winks. “Watch the door.”

Cobb hits the plunger and they slip away. Eames clears his throat and performs his duties diligently, mind racing with all the different ways things can go wrong right now. Every movement of the curtain makes his blood spike, every noise out in the hallway sends a sharp stab of adrenaline through him. He fucking _hates_ sentinel watch. Anyone who catches them now is not just a projection that can be mowed down in a rain of bullets. They are real people.

Arthur is better with real blood.

Eames glances nervously at the sleeping trio. The mark is lying with his mouth open. Cobb looks sickly with such dark hair. Arthur is immaculate, as always, even in an unflattering janitor suit. Eames begins to pace to ease his nerves.

The timer is only half spent when suddenly Cobb and Arthur gasp in great pain, wake. Eames whirls.

“Run,” Cobb rasps, dragging himself like a zombie to his feet. Arthur stumbles off the bed to his knees and rips the needle out of his arm, desperately hitting the plunger again to keep the mark under a little longer. The abandoned needles squirt serum onto the bedspread and the stirring mark falls pliant once more.

“Fuck,” Eames spits, dragging Arthur to his feet. There is a thin line of blood running out of his wrist from the needle’s unsavory exit. “What the hell is goin’ on?”

“Just go!” Cobb shouts, freeing the last needle from the mark’s arm with a little more care. Arthur is heading for the door. Eames tries to help Cobb but the extractor bats him away back toward Arthur who is falling from furniture to furniture trying to walk like his legs are broken.

“Jesus Christ,” Eames growls. He grabs Arthur in each arm pit and holds him upright.

“M fine,” Arthur slurs, sagging into him. Breathless with unexpected fear, Eames drags him out of the room ahead of Cobb, who is ushering them through the door with the still operating PASIV closed under his arm. “Go, go, go! Back stairs!”

“Is someone going to fill me in?” Eames snaps, taking the safety off his gun—this is precisely why he hates being left out of the dream. Arthur hangs onto the rail as he stumbles down the flight of stairs.

Cobb looks rattled and frightened and pissed off. “He knew it was really me.”

“How?”

“Fuck if I know! Sealed Shit must be ahead of Mac for once—goddammit!”

“Purple troll hair,” Arthur slurs, pointing back at Cobb.

“What the hell, Arthur, you’re scaring me!” Eames says, catching him as the younger man’s converse shoes slip on the stairs. He frantically juggles Arthur and the loaded gun in his hand. “ _Fuck_.”

“Then Mal showed up,” Arthur grunts, grabbing his lower back as it twinges dangerously. At the name of the deadly phantom, Eames goes livid. “Cobb, you son of bitch, I knew—“

“Just come on!” Cobb bites angrily, stretching his left arm across his body as he helps bounce Arthur down the stairs. Both are still moving a bit like zombies, stiff backs and limited movements, but for some reason Arthur is worse off. He isn’t as fast going down the stairs as Eames would like.

The forger-turned-point watches their six as they all flee the building to the waiting truck out back. No security yet, but they still have to get past a perimeter gate; no time to lose. Eames scoops Arthur up and tosses him into the back of the truck (him hissing in pain and reaching for stiff neck muscles.) Cobb pitches the machine back there with him with a loud clatter and then dives into the passenger’s side, a little more limber than the point man.

Swearing loudly, Eames turns the key and hits the gas. The front gate is open and unmanned, thankfully, so the truck bounces over the speed bumps with no witnesses to the puking janitor in the back. Eames sees his partner blow chunks and feels a little sick himself.

“Answers. Right now,” he says to Cobb in his most deadly voice.

“I don’t know!” the man cries defensively.

“Mal again? Seriously?”

Shaking, Cobb pushes his unnaturally dark hair out of his eyes. “She led Stein through the maze after us—but only after everything went to hell! He was expecting me but not like Sully. Somehow he _knew_ it wasn’t a projection of me, he said something about fucking _purple troll hair_ —I don’t know!”

“Why’s Arthur sick?”

Cobb turns and sees that Arthur is wiping his mouth with a grimace of disgust at the puke riding in the bed of the truck next to him. The extractor cringes. “Shit. They must have really tortured him down there. He was supposed to kill himself out after me.”

“Fuck you,” Eames growls heatedly, knuckles white on the steering wheel. _Never leave a man behind, what the hell_? He looks in the rearview at Arthur, whose hair is parted across the side of his head by the wind, eyes narrowed, the jumpsuit open and puffed up, sweat stains dark on the undershirt, but his color is a little closer to normal, thankfully, and he is alert. His squinted dark eyes meet Eames’ in the mirror, and Arthur fills himself with breath again, as if to stabilize, then he makes himself comfortable with his back to the cab.

“I ought to kill you, Cobb,” Eames says, angrier at himself. He’d had a bad feeling about this, should have said something.

“Listen, we all thought it was worth it, remember? And we got out of there. He’s fine. He’s not really dying you know.”

Eames glowers at the extractor, one hundred percent not okay with how intuitive the mad man is about his feelings in this matter. “Shut the fuck up.”

|           |           |

Back in LA, Marcus opens his eyes. His limo is gliding down the highway, the cab filled only with the sounds of the driver and the bodyguard talking about Sir Kenneth Branaugh movies.

He sits up, grimacing when his leg protests to even that. He keeps a lid on his discomfort and aggravation, though, and glances at his shield as they pull the cords from their wrists and pack up. The disturbing revelation that Mac is so intimate with his arch nemesis feels suddenly back on the table for discussion because it was the last thing they said that was even remotely small talk outside of the lesson.

Esca is now officially off the clock, _finally_. And dating that French douche or not, Marcus really doesn’t want to go to this banquet alone and he really, really wants to get to know this gorgeous man a little better.

And, please, God, let it go smoother than his first attempt, that time during his first lesson when he took a peek into Esca’s imagination without permission.

Esca cleans up the PASIV and adjusts his cuffs without looking at Marcus. He gives a very curt, “Good job in the maze.”

“My dad used to say I’m a human compass. I never get lost.”

If Esca cares one wit about Marcus’s dad or their close relationship, he doesn’t show it (much to Marcus’ disappointment). All he says is, “Good, as far as mazes go; won’t help you much if you lose track of reality. Decide on a setting totem yet?”

His eyes finally slide up to meet Marcus’s and Marcus loves it. He noticed it a long time ago, that Esca had stopped meeting his eye. It was about the time Marcus had gotten brave enough to, while in a dream, touch Esca whenever he felt he could get away with it. He hadn’t dared it for this lesson, but now wonders why he had chickened out just because of Lee Charles.

He can _so_ outshine Lee. With a quirk in the corner of his mouth and new energy from the challenge, Marcus draws in a deep breath--remembers that this training really is necessary--and refocuses on his lesson with a sigh, “No. I just can’t think of anything that I know I won’t encounter in real life.”

“Make it something you deliberately avoid,” Esca suggests, “something you hate.”

Marcus frowns, pieces falling together in his head, “You hate daggers and loose pearls?”

He sees Esca tense, the line of his shoulders rising, a muscle in his jaw flexing, fingers  curling in, before he fixes him with a hard look, and says bluntly, “and Eagle Standard, too. I hate a lot of things, Marcus. Get used to it.”

Dammit. Marcus holds up his hands, surrendering for now. He returns to the subject, “Well… things I hate…” he looks around as if he might find something he loathes in a barely used limo and his eye falls on the dull metal of his cane. He thumps it, “this thing, but I can’t actually avoid it in real life so I guess that’s out, huh?”

Esca does not look amused but he does speak and his voice is kinder than Marcus has ever heard it, “The cane isn’t a problem.”

Marcus looks away, thumps the cane into the floorboard again experimentally. Sometimes he thinks he can make it disappear if he does that. He’s done so in the dreams where Esca has projected him with it. Just a thought and poof, it’s gone, he can walk and dance, and his leg is his leg again, and not this useless hunk of meat hanging from his hip.

If only, if only…

|           |           |           |

Esca clears his throat and looks out the window at the green lawns on either side of the mansion’s long driveway as they slowly crawl down the road. His heart has started beating fast with embarrassment. He’s still biting his tongue from his last statement. _The cane’s not a problem_ he had promised in his promise-voice. The fuck he go and say that for? And why’d he have to use his _promise-voice_?

It’s all part of his on-going attempt to undo the mess he’d made in their first dream when he took the cane from Marcus for the demonstration on the possibilities within a dream… He hadn’t thought about what it would do to a crippled war veteran to be given back his leg, but Marcus has yet to project himself with the cane since then, and that’s not okay.

It’s as if he’s rejecting his injury, which he obviously cannot do. He needs to accept it, and Esca had only been trying to assure him the cane was not a bad thing… but why did he have to use his promise-voice?

The secret answer to that is guilt.

Esca’s stomach is a knot of guilt over having nearly read a diary he’d found while Under. The book had been thick and well used, _had a bullet hole in it_ \---Esca’s imagination swirls with the kinds of things a soldier might write in the book that stopped a bullet from going into his chest….secrets that have nothing to do with Eagle Standard but secrets Esca still wants to know, just because….

He wants to ask Marcus about it, but he can’t without revealing that he’d been up to no good when they had been temporarily separated. Thank God the music had started and snapped him out of it.

 _You’re better than this, Mac_ , grandpa’s voice is stern and disappointed in Esca’s head and it is enough to seal his resolution to never get that close to stealing ever again. It wasn’t even secrets that would have saved him! That’s what has Esca’s dizzy with self-loathing at the moment.

A part of him knows it’s because he hasn’t shared secrets with someone in too long, because when Lee was gone, he closed his heart. He made a conscious effort of it. No more. Never again.

Now he has no one but the public and his clients to make promises to, and public/client promises aren’t the kind of promises one uses a promise-voice for… and Marcus is hot and here and available and…

Esca thinks that’s pathetic, an attraction based on his desperation… but the part of him which chose to use the promise voice doesn’t agree that this is even desperation. _Everyone needs someone_ _to whisper promises to_ , it says. _Ask him about the book, he’ll like that you snooped to learn more about him…_

Esca silently tells it to go fuck itself.

“So…” Marcus holds out the word as he begins to check something on his phone. One corner of his mouth hitches up, pressing a shallow dimple into his smooth face as he glances over at Esca, “Since you like the cane, does that mean you’ll come inside with me?”

“Can’t,” Esca instantly replies with the lie he had preplanned. “My lawyers need me for more discussion.”

“We’re here, Marcus,” the driver says; on first name basis like everyone else on this guy’s payroll. Esca is glad for the reminder that this guy is sickeningly kind to everyone like that. It doesn’t make Esca special.

“Thanks, Matt,” Marcus says, fitting his forearm into the cuff of his cane as the car comes to a stop. With an amiable “I got it, man,” to the driver, Tom hops out and opens the door for Marcus, but the CEO doesn’t move, except to grin at Esca in the first flirting smile he’s seen since insisting he likes to fuck Lee. “Come on, you’re already here, and you’re dressed.”

“Yes, in case it turned out you are as stupid as you look and couldn’t grasp paradoxes. To help you get your money’s worth, I would’ve gone in and pulled you Under once an hour for the rest of the night until the proper firewalls were in place, but, thankfully, you proved a very astute learner this evening, so that is unnecessary.”

“Well, come on, don’t tell me that,” Marcus snickers. “I’m gonna have to start flunking on purpose, and that’s a gross waste of your valuable time.”

Esca’s chest swells as he takes a deep breath to cushion the blow of that blunt honesty. He feels himself cave just a little but keeps his mouth clamped shut.

Everyone leaves eventually in one way or another. Death, or just by running away like fucking cowards.

So, no. He can’t.

_Don’t go there. You need to hate this guy! Lee won’t save you unless you hate this fucker…_

|           |           |           |

Marcus sees that he’s gaining ground on Esca’s stubbornness and he silently celebrates his victory at having finally found an angle with this guy. Esca wants blunt honesty? Marcus can do blunt honesty.

“Come on,” Marcus presses, “Be my plus one tonight so I don’t have to come up with more fiendish ways to get you alone with me.”

“I can’t.”

“Because of Lee?” he sounds unconvinced, and wriggles the phone, “Because both of you guys’ Facebook status’ say Single. I don’t think he’d care who you dance with tonight.”

Esca closes his eyes. “It’s unprofessional and dangerous for me to date my clients. I…” he swallows the rest of it, looking very confused. 

“So it’s not a date,” Marcus says with an easy shrug. “Call it work. Lots of the rich and famous in there. You can network, prove you’re not out of the game, get their trust again.”

Esca sighs but looks more amused than irritated.

Marcus smiles as sincerely as he can. Wickedly, he knows what it does to people when he smiles like this. He’s not half as nice as people think he is. “I just want to see you in a real place outside the office and outside a dream for once. Sorta need to make sure you’re real.”

The laugh that jumps out of Esca is embarrassingly close to a giggle but Marcus absolutely loves the sound and, naturally, the tough as nails shield is instantly scathing, “Oh, _please_ ,” to cover up the weakness.

Marcus’ skin tingles all the same. This is going to be _fun_.

“So you’ll join me?”

Esca tells his bodyguard to stay on standby like it is putting him out, like he has better things to do than drive all the way back to the city and be forced to eat a quick uninteresting dinner before going to bed. Staying here with Marcus is more fun and Marcus knows that Esca knows it. He winks and climbs out of the car, biting back the pain in his leg as he does so.

|           |           |           |

When Marcus gets out of the car, cameras go off. Esca tenses. With a deep breath, he puts on his work face and dives into his long out of practice black tie event mode, because Marcus is right. This is the perfect chance to do some damage control.

And who knows, maybe, if the worst happens, Esca can forget about protecting important secrets, like missile codes and invaluable stock-market information and just work for these people, protect movie-stars’ secret kinks and personal problems from overly ambitious fans and paparazzi willing to have them extracted.

Esca will most likely become an alcoholic if that truly becomes the case, but he’s not going to think about that right now. He’s going to put everything he has into making sure he gets back on top in honest business before he even seriously considers….that other option.

The reporters outside instantly want to know if Esca is who he looks like he is and why is he Marcus’ plus one tonight? On their way to the door they both easily explain that he is Blue War Shields Inc. and it is business related, to do with his promise on CNN, yes of course.

Esca has to shorten his steps to stay with Marcus.

This is new and alarming, because after days and days of walking briskly beside Marcus in the dreamscape and still barely keeping up, it feels like he’s walking with an old man. He tries not to be obvious about it, tries to be patient. And if the celebrity CEO notices as he poses for the pictures, he doesn’t let on.

Marcus moves like he was born for the cameras. He looks like a model—briefly was one, when he first got rich and the world wanted to see his handsome face in every magazine. The reminder sends a shiver of amazement over Esca’s skin as he steps outside his body and sees that he is getting out of a limousine with MFA.

According to a scrawny virginal Esca, this would be the best day of his life, but it isn’t that. In an alternate world, it would be just another day at work, but it isn’t that, either. It’s the real world where people don’t get what they want, or even what they deserve; the same cruel world where he came close--so close--but not all the way and now he’s about to lose everything he cares about. Again. But, unlike before, he can see this one coming, yet there is still no stopping it.

MFA smiling, great clothes, a party of the world’s elite class… and yet there is only doom ahead; tonight is simultaneously the best and worst thing to ever happen to him.

Esca huffs and shakes his head. This stuff just can’t be written.

Beyond the surreal moment, he gets the distinct impression that Marcus is taking his time into the party because he wants to give the cameras what they came for. At the sight of him, that smirk on Marcus’ mouth, the glint in his eye, the relaxed way he holds his shoulders, clearly having a good time… something inside Esca rises to the challenge. No way in _hell_ is he going to be the stupid looking one in these shots. He turns to make sure they get his good side.

Marcus senses the game go into play and smirks, “Hang on, let’s get one without this,” he says to the camera people, handing his cane off to the nearest one. He balances shakily on his one good leg, and Esca steps closer instinctually to keep the mountain of a man from tumbling down. Marcus leans easily on his shoulder. “Thanks, man,” he says.

The cameras eat them up.

|           |           |           |

There are no cameras going off in Arthur and Eames’ faces in DC. They’re the only car on the top level of the car park; the night air billows white from their mouths. Arthur steps out of the janitor’s cover-all uniform and mops up his vomit from the bed of the truck, and then drops the suit over the edge where it flutters down three stories into a line of open dumpsters. He watches it fall, indifferent to it, to the cold, to Eames and Cobb bickering, placing blame, making excuses.

Cobb is wiping down the whole truck for prints and Eames is pacing. Arthur, arms bare in an under shirt and jeans, leans on the cold concrete of the deck and looks out over narrow dim streets below, lined with empty cars, blinking traffic lights.

The dream is still too close. It’s been a while since anything like that happened to Arthur and the residual pain of this one lingers like a bitch.

He massages his chin absently; that had hurt the most, when they’d hit it so hard with the butt of a gun as to shatter it and his teeth…

Suddenly, a very warm and intensely _Eames_ -smelling shirt drops over Arthur’s shoulder. The man has removed his over-shirt for him.

“Keep it,” Arthur says.

“You still look a bit peaky,” Eames insists, putting back on the soft brown leather jacket he’d been wearing. “What happened to you down there?”

Arthur jerks the shirt down from his shoulder, shakes it out to put it on, asking, “does it really matter?”

“Not really,” Eames says, “just curious. Haven’t seen you like that in a while, is all.”

“I’ll be okay,” Arthur promises with a snort, turning to look at his friend. Eames doesn’t look pacified, but leaves it.

Cobb announces he’s finished with his task, and they take their PASIV and leave the scene. Falling into step right between his partners, Cobb starts in on how the failure of this job means that they have to slum it for a bit longer, and that chaffs the pretty boy the wrong way. Cobb swears that if he has to sleep in one more room where he can hear through the wall as crack whores fuck losers, he’s going to turn himself in.

“I’m sick of your cry-babying,” Eames groans. “What’s so bloody great about caviar and flutes of bubbly, hm? It’s downright suffocating to live like that for too long, you ask me. Makes something _vital_ on the inside turn all whoopsy.”

Cobb snorts, “You think crack whores are more worthwhile than classy women in clinging black evening gowns, three inch heels and money?”

Eames hooks an arm around Cobb’s neck like a frat boy with his buddy, says lowly in his ear, “Cobb, given a choice between those things, I’d take the crack whore any day of the week.”

Shrugging the Brit off, Cobb laughs and shakes his head, declaring Eames insane. Arthur smirks (he’s not in the mood to actually laugh like he would any other time) because given a choice between those things, _of course_ Eames is going to go with the crack whore. Because there is no specification that the crack whore has to be a woman. A boy strung-out and willing to do _anything_ has Eames’ name written all over it like a Tupperware bowl in the communal fridge. FOR EAMES ONLY FUCK OFF, IT’S MINE.

Walking down the sidewalk, Arthur hangs his head back to loosen his neck. Cobb is still sprouting about the wonders of “sophisticated life” as if he’s trying to sell Eames on it. “You think those people are starving, sore all over, and freezing their asses off on the fucking sidewalk right now? No, they’re not. They’re listening to a live performance of good music, rubbing elbows with billionaires, dancing real fucking dances and none of that shake your ass shit. Arthur, back me up.”

With his head still hung back, lips quirked in amusement, Arthur grunts a positive, “Yeah, I’d be there right now if I had the choice.”

“Of course you would, Arthur,” Eames sighs, affectionate. “But you’re different. You weren’t born into that life like this bag of dicks. He’s just homesick and crying about it.”

“Hey fuck you,” Cobb says rather mildly, putting a cigarette between his teeth and then offering each of them the pack. They turn it down for now. Arthur, massaging his neck, catches a glimpse of an advertisement mounted on the side of a building just then.

 _RULE # 1: Never Sleep in Public,_ a Blue War Shield’s ad campaign where they give helpful tips to educate the public how to live with safer secrets even if they don’t have the budget for a shield.

He wonders what Esca is doing right now; if he’s having a good time in his, as Eames would put it, _caviar and flutes of bubbly_ life style. Eames’ shoulder bumps Arthur’s and when he looks over, Eames is grinning at him for the stupid way he’s walking with his head craned back.

Without a word, the older man falls behind Arthur and his thick fingers are suddenly working at the tension in Arthur’s neck as they walk.

Arthur grunts in appreciation, smiling because Eames is always here to rely on.

In some tender part of Arthur, a place usually ignored, he hopes that whatever his little brother is up to tonight, he’s with someone who makes him feel better _just by being there_.

|           |           |           |

Pompous as he may be, Paul Placidus throws a good party.

The food is exquisite, fascinating conversation to go with a white wine ( _incredibly_ good year), and a pair of champion boxers on the invite list strip their dinner jackets and give everyone a good show, and then begins the ceremony where Marcus is celebrated for--yes, he actually _has_ fed a third world country-- and after all the hand-shaking and cameras and brief, exclusive interviews immediately following that, comes the dancing to a small, live-string orchestra.

Esca networks and happily twirls a few beauties (in black, clingy gowns, three-inch heels and money) across the dance floor like he used to do Mal. Missing her is a dull throb in his chest which he drowns with a wash of Champaign.

Marcus regrettably sits out on this part of the evening, remaining on the sidelines of the dance floor, deep in conversation with people who own household electronic name-brands, websites, sports teams, and space satellites. From where he waltzes, Esca cannot hear the conversation, but sees it is carefree enough to make Marcus laugh loudly, head back, nose scrunched up, arm wrapped around someone curvy and giggly and wearing more skin than dress.

Esca has passed on another waltz in favor of some more Champaign--something like his ninth glass counting the two of wine he’s had at dinner--and is quickly attempting to work out what to say to Mr. Peter Browning whom he has just noticed across the room. Browning, who’d fired him from the Fischer job and gone with Mr. Charles.

Have to be charming. Have to be confident and reassuring. Have to be--

“You’re doing kind of awesomely, the way you’re working this crowd. Everybody is talking about you.”

Marcus is right behind him, voice low and deep and just for him. Esca, too alarmed at the sight of Fischer-Morrow at this party--had forgotten to keep an eye on his trainee and has let him sneak up on him.

Whatever good feeling Esca has had so far about his work tonight twists, and his breath reverses and he’s turning around and in towards Marcus and asking without restraint, “What were they saying about me?” He’s suddenly sure they have been smiling and saying nice things to his face and then taking it all back the minute he is gone.

“Good stuff,” Marcus assures leaning on his cane and shifting with difficulty until his leg is comfortable. Esca realizes he’s been standing since the ceremony and should probably find a place to sit soon.

With his breaths coming more easily, Esca casts an eye around for a chair without thinking about it, answering, “Good.”

“Yeah, you’re turning this around. I knew you could do it.”

Esca’s eyes are drawn, by the tone of Marcus’ voice, to a charming smile and inviting green eyes and so he immediately looks out across the room again. He feels like he’d been looking for something, but can’t remember what it was exactly; he’s suddenly too aware of Marcus’ shoulders in his vest, (his sleeves had been bare since the boxing match) and his light, musky cologne.

“Lee isn’t here,” Marcus says, no doubt mistaking Esca’s craning through the crowd to be a search for him. “He’s on the list, but he hasn’t shown. Not even to be fashionably late.”

It honestly hasn’t even occurred to Esca to worry about it, but this unexpected news suddenly makes Esca relax in a way he hadn’t known he’d been tense. Now he can, at least, avoid that awkward conversation. The one where Lee looks all cute with his long neck and full mouth gone slack, and asks if Esca has made up his mind, and Esca gets even more confused than ever.

He wants to tell his serum provider/ex-boyfriend to fuck off, but he can’t. Not after a night like this. Esca has never worked so hard, and yet he can feel how tired it makes most of them, to see him _working_ at a party… And then there is that incident at the beginning, when they’d first met the host after their arrival and Placidus, that blue-blooded dick-head, had almost instantly put his foot in his mouth with a wayward comment about Esca’s situation.

The phrasing has gone shaky in Esca’s buzzing-with-good-drink mind, but it had been something along the lines of _“don’t worry, we’ve all shown our asses to the world as major fuck-ups at least once and gotten away with it.”_

 _And then--as Esca’s blood boiled and his nightmare opened up to swallow him whole--Marcus had laughed, good naturedly clapped Placidus on the back, smoothing over the awkward tension the host had created_.

_“He’s not a fuck-up, Paul. He’s more of a self-made man than heirs like you and I will ever be.”_

_“Right,” Placidus had said, apologetically, clearing his throat and nodding._

_“He’s already bouncing back. This time next year, it won’t even have happened,” Marcus continued, “Right, Mac?”_

As surprising (and nice) as it had been to be rescued--once again without invitation--by Marcus Aquila, it was, in the end, nothing but empty words of comfort. Like his words now.

Marcus is kind but fundamentally wrong, things _aren’t_ turning around; he’s just a great big ship that is bobbing in the water like a cork before finally sinking….

“You okay?” Marcus asks as if he is suddenly catching on to the fact that Esca’s fingers have felt shaky since he knocked back his third glass in the middle of the boxing  match, or that his thoughts right about now have him ready to… well, ready to do something drastic.

Esca has suddenly and unaccountably got it in his head to enjoy this life-style while he still has it. He’s sure this will be the very last time he sets foot in Paul Placidus’ mansion, the last time he will be anywhere near caviar or movie-stars or a line of three Stradivarius violin’s, one of which is being played well by a remarkably cute young man who has been eying Esca appreciatively over his bow all evening.

Esca’s swiftly developing mood will greatly benefit that fine young man if he can take a break from his music, but, alas, that’s impossible. So, in some good news for the rapidly pumping blood in Esca’s system, an alternative is immediately in reach, towering over Esca even as he leans heavily on a cane, eyebrows sliding together over green eyes, “Esca?”

After the surreal entry into this party, Esca’s former kid self is simply _not_ going to let his billion-dollar life crumble without at least getting to say it afforded him one wild night of partying with _the_ MFA himself. He clears his throat, and jerks his head towards a hallway, “Follow me.”

|           |           |           |

Marcus has never been to this part of the mansion before. It’s the part Placidus actually lives in, and therefore off limits, but he follows Esca happily, because the stressed out man seems weirdly relaxed and has a sexy twinkle in his eye and a sway in his hips that Marcus has not seen before.

“I think you’re a little drunk, Mac,” he teases. Esca looks over his shoulder, licks his lips. Marcus gulps and Esca hangs a left into the first door. It’s an office, but it’s empty. They close the door behind them. The lock clicks.

They amble into the expansive room, Marcus idly going over to the bookshelf to glance over the titles while Esca marches right over to the desk and jumps up to sit on the end of it. Marcus goes over to him, laughing, “You are drunk,” he says, now in less of a tease and more of a statement.

“Be quiet,” is the snappy reply, not unkind, but not patient, either. The way Esca grabs his bow tie the second it is in reach makes Marcus ridiculously excited. He slides his arm from the cuff of his cane and lays it up on the desk, reaching behind Esca as he does so and bringing himself closer into Esca’s personal space.

Esca kisses him, keeping him there by holding firm to the bowtie.

Marcus feels Esca’s rib cage with both spread hands, then feels up his sides and back as their mouths meld, and the pressure around his neck lessens because Esca’s arms go up over his shoulders, fingers running up through his hair. Marcus smiles into the kiss and then deepens it. Esca’s hips slide forward and their groins press together. Marcus leans forward, a bar of his brace resting on the edge of the desk so that he can lean on that edge in unexpected comfort, the first perk of having the thing that he has yet to come across. _Fuck yeah, let’s do this_.

“Finally,” Marcus pants when their lips part, a delicious smack, and Esca’s fingers are already down the front of his trousers. “I—“

“Quiet,” Esca repeats, a whisper barely louder than that of Marcus’ fly. Marcus swallows a reply, makes it a groan as Esca’s warm supple hand brings him up. With a glance down at the feeling of air on the moist head of his dick, he sees that Esca has pulled himself out with his other hand. Their exposed erections slide together in Esca’s first, and then Marcus’ hand is around them, too, and they’re moving in a drunk, blurry frenzy.

Marcus finds it delicious the way Esca does not keep his mouth to himself, like he can’t get enough of Marcus’ taste, like he can’t find pleasure from the slick friction on the underside of his cock if he isn’t sighing into Marcus’ mouth while they move together. The way he opens up his jaw and draws Marcus’s tongue in deeper… there’s something about him now, something removed from the hard-as-nails fighter Marcus first saw on CNN, something almost… nonjudgmental, young and fervent and even kind.

His jaw is slack, his mouth is soft, his eyes are shining, and his skin is burning red high on his cheekbones. He’s gorgeous. Every little sound he makes when Marcus dips his fingers down to tease his balls is a request for more, more, _more_.

Neither one of them speak; Esca keeps his sweet-tasting mouth busy even when they’re too breathless for more kissing, finding a place on Marcus’ jugular that makes Marcus pulse hotter in his fist whenever Esca sucks with an ever-so-gentle scrap of his teeth. Marcus’ lips are free as Esca does this, but all that makes it beyond them are grunts and hot, Champaign-soaked breath.

Esca breaks first, spurting into the wide palm that Marcus--realizing the necessity of keeping their clothes unsullied for all the cameras out there--thinks to position just in time. Esca helps extend the same courtesy a moment later when Marcus spills his usual copious amount. White-static and mild thoughts of his eventual death swirl lazily around Marcus’ head and his system gets that post-adrenaline high that for Marcus calls for more kissing because it’s his opinion that sloppy, lazy, sex-coma kisses are the best.

But almost instantly, before he has his breath and senses enough to reclaim Esca’s moist, fermented mouth, the man twists away, reaching for some tissue from the box on the other corner of the desk. He silently hands Marcus one and they end up a step or two apart as they wipe up; dicks still exposed and softening, clothes clean, blood still whipping, bubbly, through their bodies, but breathes returning to normal.

Esca slides down from the edge of the desk onto both feet. He zips up and tugs his shirt and jacket into place, runs a hand through his hair. Marcus makes himself decent as well, return’s his cane to his side for support now that he has moved away from the edge of the desk, wondering what he should say to break the silence, wondering how he can smoothly invite Esca to come home with him tonight. But before he can do that, Esca is heading for the door and opening it.

“Wait--“ Marcus starts.

“Tom,” Esca says to someone standing right outside the door, making Marcus balk and wonder how long he’s been there, “get me a car. I’m going home.”

“Esca--“

“Is everything alright, sir?”

“Of course it is. A car. Now.”

“Yes, sir,” Tom is dialing.

“Aquila,” Esca says back to Marcus, and whatever fleeting kindness, whatever naivety Marcus might have glimpsed in the man is gone, back behind cold eyes and a hard chin. “I’ll see you tomorrow for your training. Your office. A respectable time of day. _Witnesses_. Try anything else again, and I quit.”

And with that, he’s gone with Tom following on his heels, asking a quick string of questions, clearly worried something has happened, or nearly happened, to cost him his job.

Marcus bounces his cane on the floor, wondering why he feels like they’ve done something wrong and Esca blames him.


	8. Breaking Up

 

**Having A Friend in Common With Your Secret Brother or Why Arthur Wasn’t In Mombassa, Too or Breaking Up**

Arthur chokes on his wild berry tea, pounds a fist into his chest as Cobb and Eames look up from their food.

“Nothing,” Arthur wheezes, “Just went down wrong. Shit.” His lie is utterly believed by his friends. Eames chuckles affectionately and returns to his baked potato and Cobb sighs as he looks around the Wendy’s dining room they’ve sought refuge in from the cold defeat of the night.

“We worked our asses off, risked our lives for millions, nearly died, and _this_ is where we have to eat?”

“We look for anonymity and convenience over quality and class when we’re on the move, Cobb,” is Eames’ absent reply; still a little snippy at Cobb for being the reason they’re on the move so hastily in the first place. “This life is on a cycle.”

“It’s cyclical,” Arthur reiterates in his never ending attempt to teach Eames better vocabulary. Eames, who seems to ignore Arthur but will use the word later, continues,

“Right now we sleep in the car and survive on ninety-nine cent cheeseburgers that I can swallow in one bite. Tomorrow, we’re in five star hotels and slurping down oysters. Well, not _tomorrow_ since you fucked up the job--“

“--I did not fuck it up!--“

\--“Because of _you_ , Cobb, we’ll be slumming it a little longer now.”

Arthur motions for them both to cut it out and Cobb heeds his warning, lets it go for now, for the sake of the seventeen year old girl wiping down all the tables nearby in preparation to close as soon as they were out of her hair. He sighs again, “Anyway, how much longer until we’re back in it. Do you think?”

Eames shrugs, “Best to stay low. It’s not so bad, Cobb. Really. You’ll get used to it.”

“I doubt it because this _blows_ ,” Cobb grumbles, having still not gotten used to the hard, hard reality of this life _._ “I’ve never eaten from a dollar menu before in my life!”

“Oi, don’t dis Wendy,” Eames teases in convincing sincerity past his mouthful of potato, “She’s hot as fuck, look at her.” He taps the paper cup in front of him, the smiling redhead with springy pigtails and too many freckles.

As he and Cobb dissolve into laughter and a discussion about cartoon babes, Arthur returns his focus to his laptop and the picture which had caused him to strangle on his tea.

 

 

 

Between working on Sully and Stein, Arthur has been idly researching Marcus Aquila for Eames’ little pet project and had just moments ago found an extremely recent picture (recent as in uploaded three hours ago via a mobile phone) of the billionaire war hero at some kind of gala—a picture of him with an elbow on a shorter man’s shoulder, _leaning on_ him--on _Esca_ —as if the MacCunovals are naturally the leaning posts for the rich and famous!

Esca, looking extremely powerful and self-assured in a suit good enough for Arthur to get a stirring of envy is standing cool as a cucumber and Marcus Fucking Aquila leaning on him. The body language of the picture speaks for itself, the comfort and familiarity, the lingering tension birthed from an almost magnetic pull between them.

Beyond Arthur’s computer screen, Cobb, snickering, is listing off hand-drawn honeys, and Eames is giving his I’m-gay-and-the-whole-world-is-gay interpretation of them:

“Jessica Rabbit?”

“The reigning queen of the drag queen pageant.”

“Betty Boop.”

“A pre-op tranny.”

“Alright, then, what’s Minnie Mouse?”

“…she’s a _mouse_ , mate.”

There’s an article to go with the picture, so Arthur tunes them out and starts reading about his brother and this Aquila guy.

**_ Beautiful Dreamers _ **

_Are the world’s two richest, handsomest, most eligible hunks just friends--or more?_

_We were all intrigued when Marcus Aquila was invalided home from the war, took up the reigns of his father’s empire and-- immediately pulled over to rescue MacCunoval out of his sinking ship?_

_Most of us had no notion of there even being a friendship between the fiery face we see on all the Blue War Shield ads and our favorite hunky heir of billions… but it makes sense, doesn’t it? Without Eagle Standard’s ground breaking development, SomNiCin™, there would be no shared-dreaming and thus no need for sub security. Of course these guys know each other! What were we thinking?_

_For those of you who aren’t up to snuff when it comes to knowing the facts about the reclusive Esca MacCunoval, he is also a billionaire--_ twenty four years old _when he made his first billion, guys. Sure, it doesn’t beat Marcus being eighteen, but Marcus inherited while Mac made every dime purely on his own genius. It seemed even before the whole world knew what a PASIV was, Mac was there selling the promise to keep our secrets safe and effectively monopolizing the industry._

 _Now, he’s the man the whole world trusts with its secrets, including, so it seems, Marcus Aquila. And here’s the juicy part, my lovelies. Despite having thousands of professional dreamers working under him, Esca MacCunoval_ himself _has been training the hunky ex-soldier in_ PRIVTE LESSONS _and they were reported to have arrived and left together when Marcus Aquila attended one of Placidus’ hundreds of charity fund raising banquets._

_In all his most recent interviews, when asked about the unexpected support Marcus showed Blue War Shield Inc. Marcus has answered with nothing but praise. Is he smitten?_

_MacCunoval, meanwhile, is still in hot water from all of that suicide stuff but when he was asked about Marcus in a recent interview, he simply said, “great guy, he’s a pleasure to work with.” Never reveals a thing, that one. Apparently he’s good at keeping secrets._

Arthur finds that the article rambles on and on to explain different known aspects of each man’s personality in respect to how they fit so perfectly together, cataloguing all the different times they were seen in public (only, like three times so far) with pictures and links to articles to support it all.

Arthur is impressed given that this is just an entry in a Live Journal fan community dedicated to Marcus F. Aquila. A quick check proves that this community has kept a close eye on Aquila ever since he was first revealed to the world as that hunky eighteen year old with all that money. These fans haven’t left anything out. But then again, fans are always an invaluable source for information even if most of it is complete trash churned out by the rumor mill.

Arthur bookmarks the community because it looks like it’ll be doing more than half his work for him, and closes his laptop to focus on his cheap, wrapped-in-paper meal.

Eames has abandoned teasing Cobb for getting hard for a little mouse in polka dots and are now discussing their next step; stay in the states where the money is good but Cobb is in danger of being caught, or go to Europe, where the people are more fun?

Arthur listens to his friends but can’t stop wondering if his little brother is in love … It’s a problem if he is, a problem for Eames’ little pet project. There’s no way they can extract from Esca’s boyfriend without crossing Esca’s path and doing so will only reveal Arthur’s connection to Mac. Which _cannot_ happen.

Eames is greedy and vindictive enough to sell this nugget of information to the highest bidder among Arthur’s enemies. There’s no hope of him keeping it a secret, really. Jesus Christ, the thing Eames does best in the whole world is spill secrets. It is precisely why he chose a career wherein he gets paid to do so. And then there’s the other thing. The it’s-been-this-long-how-can-I-tell-him-NOW thing. It’s a thing Arthur is doing his level best to ignore.

The bottom line is that Eames must never know that Arthur is Mac’s brother. Never. Ever.

Okay, then. They’re aborting the Aquila extraction and that’s that. Arthur makes a mental note to let Cobb know as soon as possible so that he can help talk Eames out of the idea.

|           |           |           |

Eames is waiting for the lazy kid behind the reception desk to get their room keys when he sees Arthur pull Cobb off to the side and murmur to him. Cobb looks very, very serious. Arthur’s back is to Eames so he has no hopes of discerning anything from the point man’s side of things. But he doesn’t like this.

He doesn’t like this at all.

Very few things in Eames’ life have given him reason to trust; put blame where you will (he typically puts it with the originator of his crooked teeth and slender hands, out of spite more than any real fault on his father’s part) but Eames just doesn’t let his guard down, not really. Oh, he can pretend the day away at friendships and love affairs. But really though, he’s on his own and always has been.

Unless, of course, he counts Arthur. Which he does. Even when it hurts. Like right now.

Eames likes to sometimes dwell on how he met Arthur. The forger remembers it vividly: how he had been about to be killed as an enemy of the state (stealing the second of only two PASIVs in the world from a top security lab will do that to you) and some reckless kid had come out of nowhere and saved his skin, flashed his dimples, and made Eames forget to think for a minute.

Ever since then Eames has kept Arthur close. He helps him. He’s loyal to him. And he gets the same in return, though Eames isn’t precisely sure why that is. Though, he does have his ideas.

Eames sometimes thinks Arthur only keeps him around out of sentimentality, that simple undeniable fact that the forger Knew Him When, that Eames was his mentor in this business, that Eames was the very first one to see Arthur’s eyes light up with the potential of a shared dream, the first to see Arthur flip out when Eames changed his face.

It’s been ten years. Arthur is unrecognizable as the youth who had saved Eames and pulled him into his stoner van for the getaway, and he is the only person in the world that Eames trusts.

So why, WHY, is the forger awake and staring at the ceiling, tossing and turning with worries that Arthur is going to ditch him for the younger, cuter, tragically broken, but undeniably talented Dominic Cobb?

“Jesus Fucking Christ,” Eames moans into the dark. He gets up. Time to hit a club somewhere; he can’t be alone tonight.

|           |           |           |

_The timer goes out and Arthur opens his eyes, finds himself on a bed on top of the covers._

_The IV needle is in the wrist of the hand he has lying between him and Eames, who lies facing him on his side. Eames’ heavy hand weighs on Arthur’s collarbone from a caress moments before the dream began. It moves now with Eames’ consciousness, sliding up and gently encasing his vulnerable neck, tilting his chin upwards to angle his lips to meet his, warm and soft._

_Eames is in his kiss: rash, mischievous, clever … heat and devotion… all condensed down into a moist corpulent ring, mouth pressed against mouth._

_Arthur’s heart rate spikes and his breath can’t catch up; he feels so giddy that he can’t stop his hips from twisting restlessly, and his fingers curl in around Eames’ shirt, drawing their bodies tight together. It’s good, so good. So much of everything Arthur wants. He can’t stop the little noise he makes as their groins press together. Oh, god. Eames._

_Yes._

_A thump outside their door sounds like someone kicked the wall coming in through the window. Both men jump apart. Eames reaches for a gun. Arthur takes the dagger resting on the bedside table._

_Heart now lodged firmly in his throat, Arthur holds his breath as he darts light-footed over to the peep-hole to have a look into the shabby apartment complex hallway. The window is open, the stained curtain fluttering gently in the breeze._

_He gives Eames the signal that they are not alone. The forger turns the safety off on his weapon and inhales slowly and deeply. Arthur surveys what can be seen out of the little door lens but the warped view of the breeched window and the rainy night outside of it reveals nothing about the intruder._

_Arthur swallows the lump in his throat and breathes steadily. There is a crash nearby--a scream--Eames visibly starts, and Arthur whirls to face the source of the commotion. But there’s nothing there; it is all happening on the other side of the wall, in the room next door. They stand and listen to a typical knock-down, drag out until the night is quiet again._

_With a heavy sigh, Eames puts the safety back on._

_“Now, where were we?”_

_Arthur leans against the door with a come-hither grin. Eames sinks to his knees before him breathing warmly out of his lush lips, looking up at him through thick eyelashes. “What would you like me to do, darling?”_

_Heart picking up the beat, Arthur runs his hands through Eames’ hair; it’s still stiff with product. “You know what I want to do…”_

_Eames’ eyelashes flutter and he huffs, but sits back on his haunches obediently. Green eyes drinking up Arthur towering over him, Eames tilts his head back all the way, exposing his neck, that large Adam’s apple._

_Breathing thin with anticipation, Arthur adjusts his grip on the dagger and puts the sharp, shiny steal against Eames’ warm skin. The forger bites his lip, hands closing on Arthur’s hip, betraying some nerves. With his free hand, Arthur caresses Eames’ hair again, brushes the man’s ear tenderly._

_“You know why,” he whispers._

_Eames closes his eyes, “Yes.”_

_Arthur pushes the knife and it sinks so smoothly. Heat gushes warm over his hand, and Eames’ opens his eyes wide, green searing into Arthur’s soul, burning with devotion and understanding. The forger leans further onto the blade, gurgling, hands slipping, weak, on Arthur’s waist._

_He caresses Eames’ ear, soaks in his pulsing blood until it has drained the light out of the forger, until Arthur has every last drop of his love--_

Jumping awake, Arthur takes a deep breath.

There’s a beat or two and the dream falls away a little more, letting reality regain its hold. So relieved to be in this strange bed, Arthur rolls over and presses the heels of his hands into his eyes hard enough to see stars. His heart is pounding, and his groin is heavier than he is comfortable with. Not after a dream like that.

“Fuck,” he breathes softly, voice throbbing with his racing heartbeat. _It doesn’t mean anything_ , he tells himself desperately. He’s done research. It’s possible the ending of his kill-Eames dreams are a self-sabotage thing, with no root in a sexual desire for blood.

At least, he hopes to God that’s what it is.

He swallows dryly and checks the time. Just after six. He sinks into the pillows, miserable. Like hell is he going to be able to fall back to sleep after that. Looks like it’ll be another coffee-fueled day.

As he gets dressed, he considers what Cobb has told him about not having the ability to dream any more thanks to overexposure to the miracle drug. Maybe he should start using it on the side…

Grooming himself to a song playing on his phone, he runs the pros and cons over in his head. It would be great if he could not have any more dreams like that one--or any of the others--ever again. But the way Cobb talks about it, you need dreams and without them you’re likely to….

Well, kill yourself.

Arthur doesn’t think he would mind dying. He hardly believes suicide equals eternal damnation, like Cobb is so worried about, but he’s still alive because the usual methods---leaping, sleeping, cutting, pulling a trigger--none of if it appeals to him.

If he really wanted to die, it’d be easy to let his guard down and just let someone else do it, but that’s hardly very appealing either. Some fucker out for money or revenge--not cool. And it would hardly be peaceful any way an enemy chooses for him to die.

Secretly, and only in the morning, Arthur knows that he isn’t going to let anyone but Eames kill him. He doesn’t know why, just that he doesn’t trust anyone else to do it right or something. Like there is a right way for his life to end and only Eames knows it.

He’ll ask him one day, probably. Just not any time soon; too much to do. First, he has to re-check some last minute details about the Jacobs job, then he has to put some last minute touches on the Saito thing based on what he saw in Stein’s head before the dream ripped him to shreds, and then he’s gotta send Nana a birthday present this year (gotta send it early so that it gets there on time), not to mention making sure Cobb’s going to make it through this mess. And Esca, too, especially.

Finished in front of the mirror, he rolls his totem across the dresser top. The little loaded die lands on the correct number, so he attempts to turn the lights off telepathically. Satisfied, he re-pockets the trinket, picks up the phone, and texts his team.

Cobb replies instantly, asks if they can meet somewhere because he has found an architect they can use.

So with only three hours of sleep, Arthur puts on his coat and heads out into the dawn to meet the other insomniacs. He glances at his phone; Eames will of course be asleep at this hour. Arthur wonders in whose bed it is, and if the man is going to wake up alone or in that guy’s arms.

Then he reminds himself that it doesn’t matter, because whatever ruse Eames used to seduce the man was all a lie. The guy will end up alone with no idea who he really spent the night with, and Eames will come swaggering into the Waffle House in his own sweet time, and it’ll be like it never happened.

|           |           |           |

“Where the hell is he?” Cobb asks, seeing the time again. He looks all around the dingy dining room like he might find the forger slumped in one of the booth seats. It’s after ten, and Arthur grits his teeth, sends the twelfth text to Eames’ cell. “Maybe he lost his phone again.”

“Or whoever he went home with harvested a kidney and he’s chained to a radiator.”

Arthur looks up at the homeless extractor. “That’s already happened to him once. Don’t fucking joke about that in front of him.”

Cobb’s coffee stops halfway to his lips, and his blue eyes widen. “Seriously?”

It’s not true, but Arthur nods as if it is, eyes on his phone where is has tapped into the wifi. He has lost his patience. Time to find the bastard. His phone begins tracking Eames’.

“Wow,” Cobb grumbles, sipping his black coffee and looking into the middle distance. “That had to be…terrifying.”

“More aggravating the way he spins it. Get him to tell you the story sometime. You’ll break a rib laughing.”

Cobb’s smile has the bare-minimum of shadow attached to it. “Sounds like a tale to tell.”

|           |           |           |

Eames opens a bleary eye and sees short, mussed brown hair on the pillow next to him. He pushes an elbow into the young man’s side and slurs, “Summunzat yur door, darling.”

A major perk in his habit of using pet names for every living (and the occasional inanimate) thing in his world: it casually disguises it when he forgets names. Like now. Nameless-but-appropriately-dreamy-dark-haired-boy throws on some clothes and answers the door.

Eames gets up and dresses as well. There is no use sticking around without a name, plus he is to meet Arthur for breakfast, as usual. He checks his phone. A long list of Arthur texts wait eagerly to be read. Eames scrolls through the standard example of a young man losing his patience. Then the last one makes him giggle out loud, eyebrows jumping together.

_Oh, btw, you have a hilarious bitch-stole-my-kidney story to tell Cobb._

Shaking his head, he tucks in his shirt and does up his belt, already planning out the story in his head. Then a surprisingly deep voice from the living room draws Eames out of the bedroom with his message-filled phone in hand. The well-fucked boy who still smells like Eames is at the motel door, leaning his frail weight on it in a way that can’t be good for the hinges as he asks with a sleep-thickened cracking voice, “Who?”

Arthur, imposing and handsome as ever, is in the door way, repeats, “ _Eames_.”

“Present,” Eames answers happily. The one night stand whirls and blinks at Eames, smiling sheepishly through a yawn. “Oh,” he says, eyes dropping down to drag appreciatively back up Eames’ body.

Arthur ignores the teenager and speaks directly to Eames, “You were supposed to meet me half an hour ago.”

“Apologies, love, I was incapacitated. Only just now got the texts.”

Dreamy-boy harrumphs, asks Eames with a thumb jerked over at Arthur, “You have a boyfriend?”

Arthur makes no comment, just gives Eames a pointed look and heads towards the stairs. Eames jumps his eyebrows at his latest shag and follows, shutting the door behind him. Arthur lingers on the first landing for him and shakes his head as Eames catches up.

“Nice kid.”

Embarrassment makes Eames tug at his shirt sleeves as his feet fall in sync with Arthur’s down the stairs. “Him….oh, he’s…”

“You don’t remember his name, do you?” Arthur asks with cruel amusement.

“Rory, I _think_ ,” Eames answers with a wag of his eyebrows, like the anonymous thing is supposed to be all part of the fun of it. Arthur smirks and shakes his head on principle, “He’s not going to miss homeroom because of you, is he?”

“Might do. _Said_ he was nineteen, but you know how that goes…”

Arthur says nothing. Eames scratches the back of his head.  “How did you find me, by the way?”

Arthur doesn’t answer because, 1) his various skills speak for themselves, 2) tracing a phone is too simple to be called a skill, and 3) Eames is asking this only to change the subject. So Arthur, not in the mood to let Eames dodge questions about his behavior, asks, “Don’t you think you’re getting too old for this shit?”

“Is this the part where you give me your opinion on it?” Eames asks tersely.

Arthur huffs, and Eames rolls his eyes. This isn’t the first time Arthur has tried to impose his impeccable style onto Eames. Taste and decency aren’t two things Eames knew Arthur to possess until just a few years ago.

It’s maddening considering he found him stoned out of his mind and a stranger to a bar of soap. It’s a bit like he’s created a monster with all of his advice over the years, as he has tried to bottle perfection by correcting any flaw he sees in his young friend--and Arthur has not rebelled against it, has _embraced_ it to become a stuck up Arthur who has forgotten how to have fun.

Try to make anything beautiful and it blows up in your face.

Arthur remains stoic, doesn’t say whatever is on his mind. He’s difficult for Eames to read in the mornings. They descend in silence to the ground floor and Eames asks, “So does this mean Cobb’s found a new architect to replace him?”

After the Stein job they’d decided as a group that if Mal compromises the maze one more time, Eames will throttle Cobb personally--and this from a man who doesn’t like to get his hands dirty. One of the texts Eames read while getting dressed hints that the position has been filled. “So what’s his name, then?”

Arthur laughs outright, and maybe Eames remembers Arthur still knows how to have a little fun when he smiles this big, dimples and teeth and crinkles at the corners of his eyes.

“What?” Eames asks. He stops walking, alarmed by Arthur’s mirth at this hour of the day. The point man chuckles as he answers sheepishly.

“I don’t know his name.”

Eames laughs now, too. Oh, the _irony_. He isn’t about to let this one go.

“Arthur, dearest!” he cries, “I find it hard to believe you’d enter into _anything_ without at _least_ having his name!” This is pretty much what he’d known Arthur had been about to say about the Rory boy. “It’s so _cheap_ —and it’s _dangerous_. Not to mention ungentlemanly.”

Whatever humor Arthur had found in the little twists of fate this morning is gone by the time Eames is finished. That kind of thing never lasts long on darling Arthur. The younger man is back to his usual humorless attitude. Giving a hard warning look, he answers, “Cobb said his name, like hell I was listening at 6 in the morning.”

Eames rubs his throbbing temples and harrumphs. “Jesus, doesn’t that man sleep?”

“Nope,” Arthur answers. Eames had expected that answer, but the way Arthur says it sounds like he knows for sure that Cobb didn’t find time to close his eyes, and that makes the hairs on Eames’ neck prickle.

“I’m telling you, Arthur. Mark my words. The man is about to crack,” Eames warns. “He’s unstable. Let’s find someone who isn’t going to scramble our brains like egg, hm?”

“It’s not that bad. He’s got it under control,” Arthur reminds him. “And this new architect is good. Cobb says real good.”

“Fine,” Eames shrugs, too hung over to really argue his stance on cutting the nutter loose as soon as possible. He’s never really had a problem teaming up with unbalanced men—he sticks to Arthur like glue, after all, and he’s seen enough over the years to know which way those scales are leaning--he just isn’t a fan of the younger men pairing off and leaving him to hunt out another protégée from MaybeRory’s generation.

His suggestion to avoid whatever catastrophe is about to strike Dominic Cobb is purely for the sake of I-Told-You-So privileges later, when things go bad.

|           |           |           |

Eames doesn’t hate Cobb; point of fact, he would have a mild crush on the man if Arthur wasn’t around. But Arthur is around, and Eames has always liked brunettes better than blonds, youth in place of wisdom.

And there is the simple issue of safety to consider. Despite being useful in the middle of a militarized sub conscious, Cobb is still a little too desperate to be working in this business--frankly not worth Eames’ time.

It’s only because Arthur seems to like him so much that he’s not been turned in for the reward money. It hurts, but Eames tries to be nice, for Arthur’s sake. At least Cobb can recognize a decent architect when he sees one. Nash has talent. A bit green, like Cobb, but beggars can’t be choosers.

After getting him up to speed on Jacobs and Saito, Eames has started in on the Aquila plans.

“Cobb here is _perfect_ for the Aquila extraction. He knows Mac better than anyone, so all we need--“

“Actually,” Arthur cuts in. “You know what, Eames. I’ve been thinking about this and I don’t like it. We’re not doing it.”

They are on a roof, in an old garden left to fend for itself. The plants are over grown, some of the delicate ones dead. The patio furniture is mildewed from rain.

Today is a scorching hot day, so they’ve all dressed down. Eames has removed his shirt to work on a tan. Cobb is wearing a t-shirt and sunglasses. Nash is in a sleeveless undershirt. Arthur’s suit jacket is gone and his shirt is loose and open, and he doesn’t even look at Eames as he shoots their little pet project in the face.

Thrown, Eames can only blink at Arthur for a moment before he asks, “Care to tell us why, darling?”

“I just don’t want to do it, Eames,” Arthur snaps.

“Yeah,” Cobb suddenly says. “I’m with Arthur. There’re too many variables and if it’s all the same to you, I’d rather not show my face anywhere near Mac right now.”

There it is again, a traded look--only the most recent of hundreds. Maybe because now there’s Nash to see it, too, but it strikes Eames right then that Cobb knows something about Arthur that he, Eames, does not. And seeing as how Eames has been working with Arthur for nearly ten years and Cobb for only a few days, this does not sit well with the forger, and he blurts, “Alright, out with it. What are you two not telling me?”

“What?” Arthur has the audacity to play it innocent and Eames calls him out on it, but Cobb swoops in then like it’s any of his business, with a terse, “Just drop it, Eames. It has nothing to do with you.”

It all falls together brightly illuminated in Eames’ mind; Arthur and Cobb have been researching Aquila and they’ve come across something, something good. It will explain Arthur’s sudden spike of interest in the pet project last week, when he lost a night of sleep researching. He had said it was a dead end when Eames had asked, but that was a lie. They just don’t want to share, so they’re rooting Eames out.

Air stops coming into Eames’ lungs until he coughs, and he suddenly stands and takes his things and heads for the stairs. He can’t describe the pain in his stomach, the hollow ring in his chest, and he can’t get it out of his head, that look between them, the understanding that Eames himself apparently hasn’t earned a right to have with Arthur despite all this time.

Arthur calls after him, “Hey, get back here! We’re not finished preparing for Jacobs!”

Eames gives him the finger and doesn’t stop walking. He can hear Arthur running and within a moment, the point man is right behind him saying hotly, “What the fuck, Eames? You’re the forger! We can’t do this without you!”

“Looks like you’re going to have to do,” Eames says, pushing the stair doors open with a loud clang. Arthur throws the only thing he has in his hand, an ink pen. It pings off the door, missing Eames’ head by an inch and he lets out a crude expletive and cries, “You agreed to do this! That’s a contract, Eames! You can’t just leave us!”

Eames finally turns and looks at Arthur. The _us_ in that sentence--the unification of Arthur and Cobb, in Eames’ mind--has Eames hardening straight through, all the old walls shooting up. He gives his oldest and dearest but apparently not very loyal best friend his nastiest smile, “I can, and I am,” and with that he goes and doesn’t look back.

 


	9. Stress Release

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So sorry this update took so long! More soon, don't give up on this :)

** Chapter 9: Stress Release **

 

By the time Esca makes it to Eagle Standard for Marcus’ session, it’s been a day from hell.

First, he woke up hung over, but not nearly as hung over as he would have liked to be considering what he did. (Oh, _god_. What he did!) Last night he’d excused his behavior on the basis of being too drunk to be rational, but this mild hangover means he’d been acting well within his typical cognitive functions. So there’s that to deal with. (Oh, god. Oh, fuck. WHY?)

After standing in the shower, pounding his head on the tiles and hating himself for an hour, he was forced to skip breakfast to spend the morning with about twelve lawyers and all manner of SDRA agents discussing the on-going investigation into his company. He has at least managed to get his lawyers to buy him some time to figure out what he’s going to do with the toxicology report, but that isn’t enough of a win in the face of the onslaught of clients who have been canceling their accounts.

What’s more: apparently it has become The Thing To Do if you’ve ever shared a dream with a professional shield and then, in any way or form, had any kind of mental episode, to file a law suit. Apparently pre-existing condition doesn’t matter. Apparently, time-lapse between the dream and the incident doesn’t matter. At least, not to these idiots who are attempting to make him pay millions for it.

It’s those goddamned, ambulance-chasing lawyers. Those slimy bastards with shoddy offices on the corner next to CVS stores love to talk good people into law suits on the slim chance of shit loads of money they didn’t earn.

Mother. _Fucking_. Assholes.

Esca spent lunch laying in the dark on the couch in his office with his eyes closed against a migraine. And that was how they found him to tell him the news that there has been an attempt on Stein’s secrets despite Stein’s new bodyguard, or actually BECAUSE of him, the man Esca paid for. So that meant an afternoon talking to MORE lawyers.

Not to mention the constant swarm of reporters that have not stopped since Mal hit the pavement. Little people, pressed for a deadline, shouting for answers, flashing cameras, pushing microphones, whenever he steps onto the street. Tom hasn’t actually had to be a bodyguard like this since he was hired, so at least he’s kind of having fun for once.

Now, Esca’s abdominal muscles feel fluttery as he steps into the CEO’s office, and Marcus looks up from something he’s signing to smile somewhat hesitantly at him. Esca looks back, stone cold disinterested. Marcus’s face falls and then hardens and he dismisses the clerk at his elbow, and raises his voice to call in Stephan as he starts rolling up his sleeve. He gives Esca nothing but a cursory greeting.

Tom shakes Stephan’s hand, murmuring about his camel-hair coat which Stephan admires as they sit together on the couch.

Without a word to Marcus, Esca sets up his machine and plugs in. Marcus makes quick work of it--or tries. He misses his vein. “Ah!” he inhales and the little pout noise he involuntarily makes as he puts his mouth to the spot on his wrist literally makes Esca smile despite his shitty mood.

 _Smile_ , goddamn it. At a time like this!

It. Is. Maddening.

Esca checks the expression before Marcus sees it, expels a truly annoyed scoff, and grabs Marcus’ hand. He pulls the wrist from that perfect mouth he’d learned every secret of last night and sticks it expertly, then lets Marcus fasten the Velcro around it himself--because this is NOT the _here-let-me-touch-you-tenderly-under-sly-pretenses_ part of a rom com. It’s _not_.

He sets back, allows Marcus to get comfortable, and presses the button.

|           |           |           |

Once again, the fucker ignores the cane Esca creates for him.

Esca sighs in frustration because he _shouldn’t_ care whether or not Marcus is getting square with his self-identity as a man with a limp. He has enough to be getting on with without taking on Marcus’ issues as his own.

And yet…

Esca idly wonders how much more _shit_ he can take before he has a psychotic episode.

He is standing in a hotel lobby, a wall in front of him isn’t really a wall at all, just crystal clear water falling in a smooth sheet from the ceiling into the floor. The sound is a soothing salve on Esca’s frayed nerves. All manner of green vegetation is growing in the marble room around him and through the windows he has projected rolling hills of fall foliage and distant, snow-capped mountains.

It is utterly still and _silent_ but for the soothing trickle of water.

He gratefully closes his eyes and draws a deep breath of this momentary glimpse of serenity. His anger does not go away, only recedes from the surface so that he gains just that much more control of himself. When he opens them again, he notices the color of the clouds outside, dark grey and low.

“We’re not just going to do this lesson and not talk about what happened.” Marcus’ voice is firm and sure and without a doubt the reason for the storm brewing outside. He already knows he’s not in a dream. Damn, he’s getting good at it.

“I was drunk. It literally could have been anyone. You were an easy target.”

Marcus huffs. “That any reason to be like this about it? I’m a person, you know.”

Esca laughs cruelly, “Oh, did I make you feel cheap? Used?” he looks over his shoulder, sticking out his bottom lip, “I’m saw-wee.” Looking back at the water with a huff, “There. Make you feel better?”

Growling, Marcus charges over from where he’s been leaning on the reception desk and grabs Esca’s arm, turning him around, “ _Stop mocking me_!”

Esca is caught off guard by the force with which he is manhandled and how close Marcus’ face is to his, how fiery his eyes are capable of looking even if they’re green like algae in a stagnate fish pond. “I _know_ you can be nice if you wanted to be.”

God, Marcus smells good. Esca attempts to close his nostrils without using his fingers and narrows his eyes while he’s at it, “You’re right, I can, but I _don’t_ want to be.”

“Why not?”

“Let me go.”

“Just tell me what I did _wrong_ ,” Marcus asks, voice wavering a little like he… cares. After just one, quick and dirty orgasm.

Maybe it’s the setting of the dream giving Esca’s frayed nerves a break, maybe it’s the firm grip Marcus is still holding him with, but probably it’s that Marcus looks so sincerely upset. Something yields in Esca.

“Alright,” Esca concedes, looking at the floor just in front of Marcus’ toes. “Perhaps I could have said thank you, or something, last night. I did have a good time. MFA lives up to his reputation. Now can you let it go and move the fuck on please?”

Marcus allows Esca to rip himself out of the grip that holds him and when he looks, Marcus has a shadow of a smile on his face. “There. Wasn’t so hard, was it?”

He hates Marcus. He really does. Because it wasn’t so hard before. Keeping people away. Not caring. It’d gotten easy.

And now it’s not anymore.

Fuck.

|           |           |           |

The music begins as Esca speaks, so he wraps up his example quickly and asks, “Do you understand?”

Marcus has his mouth open and Esca feels like the man has been listening to Beethoven and not him. Gritting his teeth with annoyance, he asks again, “Marcus, repeat what I just did.”

“Oh, um,” his forehead wrinkles and he looks embarrassed, caught day dreaming in class, “Um…”

The timer bottoms out, leaving them sitting on either side of Marcus’ desk. Esca sighs. Marcus looks sheepish. “Sorry, I kind of spaced out for a second.”

“For the love of—“ Esca resets the timer for another round and tries to remember some professionalism. “It is a difficult concept, and that’s why we cleared the whole morning. Again,” he tells Tom, who nods.

Back under in the same waterfall lobby, Esca finds that rain is pelting the windows. The bright yellow foliage on the rolling hills outside looks like a broken spirit, and thunder rolls because Esca is annoyed.

This isn’t actually a difficult concept, which is proven ten seconds later, when Marcus repeats, verbatim, Esca’s lesson topic and then displays a firm grasp of the material.

“Aquila, are you deliberately wasting my time?”

The CEO shrugs. “The music had already started. I wanted more time to try it _and_ to try a couple of other things.”

“What things?”

“Things I couldn’t do last night in that stupid brace.”

Esca’s chest swells and he takes a step back. “Aquila—really. This,” he shakes his head, but Marcus smiles.

 “I know you’re probably going to say something about being on the clock and all that—but it _has_ to be down here in a dream. You’re so fucking sexy and I can’t stop thinking about…” he searches for a word and then just says, “ _pounding that ass_ _the RIGHT way_ , not that sissy stuff we did at the party. Best place to do it is right here, right now, as loud we want.” His green eyes soak up Esca’s trepidation, shining with warm promise, and he seems to be a little out of breath, “What do you say?”

“Fucking hell,” Esca surrenders. Marcus laughs happily as Esca surges up, grabs the back of his head and kisses that pouty mouth. Not an ounce of alcohol in his system this time, but he’s too gone to care. Especially now, with Marcus’ mouth-- _oh, Christ, his mouth_ \--on his.

“The mean stuff works on you,” Marcus chuckles and Esca pulls his hair, “Shut up.”

“Right, right,” Marcus says quickly. “Sorry. _C’mere_.”

Esca yelps as Marcus lifts him off the ground. Their pelvises press hard together, growing erections meshed. Breathless, the shield hangs onto the big strong soldier as Marcus positions them against the window. They grind their hips and suck on each other’s tongues until Esca can’t take it anymore.

He gets his feet back on the ground and turns to face the glass as he pushes down his pants and ruts his exposed ass back against Marcus unashamedly. He’ll pretend this is just one of his typical, private sex dreams to blow off steam. That’s what he’ll do. He’ll pretend this doesn’t matter. That Marcus is someone unimportant, just a pretty face that will never mean anything. “Fuck me, fuck me, fuck me.”

Marcus laughs giddily but doesn’t say anything, though Esca thinks he hears something like _yes sir_ under his panting breath. Tingles roll deliciously down Esca’s back, and he bites his lip to stop himself from saying more needy things.

He puts his hot forehead on the cool glass and shivers as Marcus’ slick fingers slip between his cheeks. He pulls on himself patiently as Marcus works him open, stroking his hip reassuringly. When the hot head of Marcus’ cock presses to his stretched opening, Esca shudders, and his head squeaks on the glass as he nods frantically. “yes—yes— _ugh_.”

The hot girth burns all the way in, and Esca’s skin flashes hot then cold, and he braces against the cool glass. Marcus stops once he is sunk fully inside, and both his hands sweep up and down Esca’s sides in a silent reminder to relax. With his eyes closed, Esca rolls his forehead on the window until the spasms and burning subside and his body relaxes fully around the new intrusion.

Marcus’ hands reach around him and take his withered erection in hand, quickly works it back to its former glory. Esca rolls his lips and bites back a sound of pleasure when Marcus’ rough thumb runs slowly over his slit.

“Ready for this?” Marcus asks.

Esca opens his mouth and “Oh god,” falls out before anything he had hoped to say. He bites his lip again and pushes experimentally back against Marcus, but suddenly the opening notes of classical music fill the air. He’d taken too long adjusting; _damn it_.

“No!” Marcus gasps angrily.

“Do it, quickly,” Esca demands. Marcus sets a fast hard pace. Again Esca’s skin squeaks on the cold window as he desperately tries to find some traction to hold on as his body is wrecked to kingdom come by Marcus’ powerful thrusts and frantic pulls.

Esca keeps his eyes closed, waiting as patiently as he can for the shoots of pleasure rocketing through his body to coil up into one fountain of intense pleasure. The charged tempo of the music is at least an excellent help.

It starts low in his abdomen, right were Marcus’ thick hot cock slams into him again and again; a tense, sharp coil of fire, a bottle rocket with a lit fuse. Lost in himself, Esca doesn’t see the beam of sunlight that brings the golden trees back to life when he breaks with the rain clouds, sending a rainbow arcing beautifully across the sky with fireworks as he spills hot cum.

Marcus shouts with wonder, seeing the dreary rainstorm transform right before his eyes into breathtaking splendor as Esca tightens all around him, gasping and shuddering like he’s trying to keep it a secret. This thing inside that he so desperately wants to give someone, this wrecking need to love, to not be _alone_.

 The CEO breaks with the crescendo of music and the dream is over.

|           |           |           |

Marcus opens his eyes in his office and finds that he has a load in his pants. Mortified, he sits up, infinitely glad that he is behind his desk. Stephan, and the bodyguard, Tom, look toward the sign of life and lift the corners of their mouths in bored smiles of kindness. Marcus huffs, reeling still from embarrassment, and waves a silent _hello again_.

Across from him, Esca is slumped to the side in his chair only for a moment before he blinks and straightens, and then nearly crosses his legs, but doesn’t. Marcus doesn’t mean to meet his eye, but when he does, he can’t help but smile, though he tries to keep it a normal smile. The way the sun had parted the clouds, the rainbow, the fireworks, the way Esca had felt, had sounded. Marcus wants it again with a feral ferocity that makes his whole body tingle.

“You did very well,” Esca says, doing a great job at keeping his voice the same detached tone he’s been using, even though his face says everything Marcus is feeling. The subtext to the compliment warms his ears and he nods, feels a little bit like a spy as he tries to return covertly,

“Thanks for the second try, it was totally worth it.”

Esca nods curtly and stands. Marcus tries not to look at Esca’s pants to see any signs of their shared dilemma, but he does look, and there aren’t any. Esca packs up the PASIV, talking about their next appointment like nothing crazy awesome had happened in the dream, like he doesn’t have warm ooze to deal with ASAP.

Marcus remains seated as everyone says _thank you_ and _job well done today_ and _see you tomorrow_ , and then finally he is alone and can hobble carefully to the bathroom to clean up. His damn cane slows him down and he curses miserably.

|           |           |           |

Once he is on the ground floor, Esca slips into the bathroom and cleans himself up with a moue of disgust. What the hell had he been thinking? That had been entirely unprofessional and ill planned. Thank god the compound had been strong enough to at least silence groans of pleasure, even if it had been unable to prevent this kind of humiliating ending. Thank god Marcus had kept his cool, Esca maybe should have warned him... _No. SHOULDN’T HAVE FUCKED HIM IN THE FIRST PLACE!_

Esca washes his hands and glares at himself in the mirror. Sensible thinking had gone right out the window when Marcus had stated so plainly what he wanted to do. _Unprofessional fucker_ … Esca hopes Marcus’ trousers _are_ stained so that his dirty little secret isn’t a secret; serves him right.

Thankfully, Tom is none the wiser about the bathroom break and they return to Esca’s apartment, where the whole rest of the day is empty but for phone call after phone call with lawyers, press, and worried employees and the reoccurring memory of Marcus’ strong arms holding him up off the ground in that dream.

“Mac?” Tom’s voice cuts into Esca’s day dream, ripping him away from that cold window that had chilled his overheated body. He jerks slightly, giving away that his thoughts had been too far away from the business at hand.

“What?” he snaps. The guard looks unhappy as he jerks a thumb at the door. “It’s Lee. Want me to threaten him?”

Esca’s breath catches in his chest. Lee. Shit. Was it really only yesterday that he had lunch with Lee? “Erm. No. Shit. I need to talk to him—if he stays longer than ten minutes, you can start threatening him.”

Tom nods curtly and opens the door with a stoic expression. “Ten minutes,” he tells the guest.

Lee’s lean figure breezes into the apartment, in one of the suits Esca got him back when they were together, a long coat, one hand in a pocket, the other holding a folder which he waggles up next to his head as the door closes them in privacy.

“Do you have an answer for me or not?”

“Hey to you, too, Lee.”

“Don’t be so sensitive, Maccers,” Lee grins, tosses the papers on the coffee table. “I did so enjoy lunch yesterday, by the way; I have missed you. I did not know how much until then.”

Esca draws in a slow breath as the crossroads really stretch out in front of him. What to do. What to do.

“I realize you fear being caught. But this is easy, no?” Lee asks, “One thing and it is over. Soon forgotten.”

“It’s not just the threat of being caught, Lee,” Esca confesses. “It’s against everything I believe.”

Lee meets his eye for a long moment and looks away, nodding. He drops his head for a moment and sounds apologetic, “I know. But I hate to see you in such trouble, Maccers. I want to help you, if you’ll just let me.”

“Then help me without making me do this!”

“It’s not that easy, love.”

“Don’t call me that.”

Lee holds up his hands in surrender, “You are right. I am letting my hopes put me ahead of myself.”

“You’re trying to butter me up,” Esca accuses, guard rising from where it had unconsciously dropped at the sound of Lee’s old pet name for him. _Let’s go to bed, Maccers_ … _good morning, mon cheri Maccers_ … _oh, Maccers, oui, oui, oh, oui_!

“If I could do it without asking this, I would,” Lee says, breaking into Esca’s memories with his big brown sincere eyes. “But it will be a big blow and without learning Aquila’s plans, I could possibly never catch up to him again. You would have my company die to save yours?”

Esca does not give his answer because Lee would not like it.

“This is the only way,” Lee continues, unfazed that his question is ignored, “You know me; I wouldn’t consider doing something like this normally. I know what happens when the SDRA finds out. But, Esca, you have to realize the rare opportunity that has been given to us. You are in the prime position. You are right where and when you need to be to save yourself. How can we pass this up?”

“It’s still wrong. I’m not going to do it.”

Silence follows. It’s a long one, in which Esca scrubs at his chin and fights with himself to stick to his morals. _This is what’s right. This is what’s right. Remember who you are.  Marcus trusts you._

Lee huffs. “I don’t believe it. You’re fucking him, aren’t you?”

Esca’s head snaps up out of the crook of his thumb and fore-finger, “That’s none of your business.”

Lee’s charm is gone and an anger familiar from their last few months together is in its place. “Yesterday you were offering to fuck _me_ , remember?” Lee shakes his head, “Desperation turns you into a whore for whoever might save you, but I guess even then you are too soft to bend over for more than one person at a time.”

“Go. Right now. Or I’m going to code-word Tom,” Esca threatens. If given the code word, Tom will shoot first and ask questions later. SDRA badge says he’s allowed to.

Lee looks wounded and pissed off. “I thought you might have changed, Mac. I hoped you had. Thought maybe all this mess would make you  
see yourself for who you really are.”

“Go to hell. I don’t need you or anyone else to come in here to _rescue_ me.”

“Right because Esca MacCunoval doesn’t need anyone.”

“You have ten seconds, or I’m shouting.”

Lee turns to leave without another word. Esca, shaking, drops down on his couch and drops his face in his hands.

Fuck.

|           |           |           |

Despite the fact that Eames left and forced the team to improvise an incredibly nerve-wracking and sloppy new plan, the Jacobs job is a success. Arthur, Cobb, and Nash actually manage to get the secrets they went in for and get away almost without a hitch. Mal doesn’t even cause too much damage because of Nash.

All credit goes to Cobb and his sliver-tongue and his level head under pressure. Arthur treats him to as much alcohol as the man can imbibe before losing consciousness, as per tradition, and they jabber and tease and get into a little fist fight, but it’s just not as much fun with Cobb as it is with Eames.

After treating their hangovers and relocating to Japan, Arthur, Cobb and Nash wind up for the last job in this spree, the Saito job, to take place, weirdly to Cobb’s distress, on a bullet train into Tokyo. This will be by far the easiest on the docket--always save the easiest for last--because Saito is not, nor has he ever been, a client of Mac’s, nor any sub-security company.

A gold mine.

Though, with Eames gone, Arthur is going to have to go into the dream to replace him and he fucking hates it, would much rather be point.

The thought of the trouble Eames caused when he walked away puts a rind-sour taste in Arthur’s mouth, and carrying out plans he made with Eames with strangers and Cobb instead, puts an ache in his chest so powerful that on the morning of the extraction, Arthur literally scrambles to take four aspirins, horrified he’s having a heart attack.

But then he ends up sitting down under the steaming hot shower head for, like, twenty minutes, hoping the attack will come anyway.

To make matters worse, the guy they have hired to be point is about eighteen, and is pretty much given a crash course on PASSIVs and musical kicks right there on the train platform before it arrives and they board, find their compartment shared with the Japanese tycoon, and begin.

Arthur has a very bad feeling about it. In fact, it’s by far the worst feeling he has ever had about a job, but there is no stopping it. They’ll lose their window if they try to pull out now. It could be months before an opportunity could present itself and by then it will be too late.

This whole string of extractions is for COBOL Engineering. And if COBOL doesn’t get everything that COBOL asked for when COBOL asked for it, then COBOL doesn’t pay. In fact, COBOL _kills_.

COBOL just doesn’t _accept_ failure.

|           |           |           |

Esca just needs to not have to think.

He just needs to feel good.

And, god, does Marcus give him what he needs.

The lesson has been kept short today, with Esca sensing (instantly upon entering the dream) that Marcus intends to have him again and again, and deciding (almost as instantly) that Marcus can have him.

Fuck, he can _so_ have him.

This time there’s a bed. No pretenses. Esca is without a single stich of clothing. He’s on his stomach, knees drawn up so that his ass is obscenely high off the sheets, doesn’t even bother to hold himself up on his arms, just lets his face mush into the bed. He pumps his dick feverishly while Marcus, over him and holding the bedframe, feet on the mattress for leverage more so than his knees, pounds deep inside him so hard and sure and perfect.

Esca exists as nothing but hot blood and building pressure and anger and getting what he _wants_ , because all he wants is to come. It’s intensely satisfying, wanting something so simple and knowing that without a doubt he’ll get it. This glorious cock in his ass _will_ make him come.

Outrageously, amid all the surrender and desire and crashing pleasure and ever-present anger, there is another emotion. Gratitude. Given that his whole life is fucked up thanks to Mal selfishly leaving and Cobb hatefully blaming, and Arthur spitefully stealing and Lee greedily manipulating… Esca truly needs this. An escape, if even for a few minutes. If even just in a dream. A give and take that is pure and simple and without strings.

They finish before the timer, Marcus crying out his name and filling him with a hot rush of cum which seeps out when they part. It’s a dream, so Esca only thinks and the wet spots from his own orgasm leave the sheets, but he lets the mess inside him stay. He likes it, the dirty little trickle of it, harmless here in a dream.

Esca has his eyes closed, still wrapped up in the bliss of his ejaculation, still catching his breath, when Marcus’ lips peck his shoulder and a hand nudges between his thighs, behind his balls to tease his used hole and the mess there. Esca, grinning, lets him because it feels good so maybe they’ll go again in a minute. Another perk of dream sex, mere seconds and everything’s back in action.

But Marcus is moving in, sliding under Esca’s arm as if to--yes, he’s snuggling up next to Esca. As if he would rather just lay here in his arms than fuck.

Esca retracts the arm Marcus had dropped around his shoulders and sits up, pushing Marcus’ big, stupidly adorable head from his chest. “Back to business.”

“What?” Marcus asks, voice incredulous but small.

Sitting on the edge of the bed with his feet on the floor, Esca has done away with all of the mess and doesn’t look back at Marcus, but at least doesn’t make excuses, either. “I don’t cuddle.”

Silence falls in the bed behind him, and he tries not to look back at Marcus, but nothing he tries against MFA ever works. The dreamboat is lying with an arm back behind his head, one leg drawn up, a fucking Greek tragedy waiting to swallow Esca up and transform him. Esca can’t read his expression, but it is kind.

“Okay,” Marcus says, “I can respect that.” And that’s it, all he says and all he means, complete sincerity. Esca’s surprise is evident and Marcus’ lips quirk and he adds, eyes narrowing seductively, “For now.”

Shaking his head, Esca stands, manifests clothes, and corrects. “Forever.” His voice is softer than he intends for it to be.

Marcus sits up, naked and beautifully at ease. His long strong limbs were made to be on display. He’s studying Esca now with a hurt kind of bewilderment and shakes his head, “I can’t figure you out.”

“Well it’s not your job to figure me out,” Esca snaps.

Marcus clamps his mouth shut, a deep inhale through his nose, jaw jumping with held back comments. His eyes are fiery again. “Clearly you don’t _want_ it to be. Is it because in some conceited part of your mind you’ve decided I’m not good enough for you, or is it just that _no one_ will _ever_ be good enough?”

“Don’t presume to know me.”

“I’m not presuming; I’m TRYING!” Marcus cries. “Why won’t you give me a chance?”

 _Because no one gets a chance anymore_. But Esca can’t say that, so he says nothing.

The timer reaches zero.

|           |           |           |

To Arthur’s horror, Mal shows up in the second level of the Saito dream. He is aware, as it is happening, that he saw it coming, that he _literally_ saw it coming, yet did nothing about it.  He’s aware he brought this on himself.

Fuck.

The love bungalow dream on the top level offers a second chance not to epically fail. It’s a flimsy, unlikely, sheer-dumb-luck-if-it-works second chance, but at this point, it’s enough. Arthur is at the window, watching the riot boil up, trying not to bounce his legs with nerves, trying not to think about Eames hearing it in the grape vein that Arthur finally got whacked.

Across the room, Cobb is soaking wet and playing up the Cheating Mistress angle, and it just might work. It might. God, it might…

But then Cobb tries to take a short cut and Nash REALLY fucks it up.

Shit.

As they flee the train at the very next stop, running like hell into the metropolis of blissfully-overcrowded Japan and a safe-place they’d prepared in a hotel, Arthur grits his teeth and thinks he has literally never had to run from the scene of an extraction half as much as he has found himself doing since taking Cobb under his wing.

So fuck Domincic Cobb. No wonder Eames left. He had some goddamned _sense_.

In the hotel room, Arthur paces, eye on the clock to watch every single minute tick by as COBOL’s deadline comes and goes. He paces. Paces. Paces.

His heart is racing and that pain is back in the dead center of his chest. He stares at the number in his phone that he has always used to reach Eames. But he does not dial.

He calls a guy for a helicopter and is extremely tempted to just leave Cobb here. It’s his fucking fault, anyway. _He_ brought Nash in; _he_ necessitated Nash in the first place. Nash, who has already ditched them, didn’t even wait to get to the hotel and sneak away like someone with common sense, just plain disappeared from the platform like a coward, let them _see_ his betrayal.

Arthur can’t get out of Japan fast enough as far as he’s concerned, because cowards have stories to tell and right now a lot of people are probably looking for a good story. He should definitely just go. Waiting for anyone else to tag along is just going to be dead weight slowing him down, right?

So he packs his things and is about to run. Maybe he’ll go find Eames, because this is bullshit without him.

He’s _not_ going to apologize; he didn’t do anything to apologize for. And Eames probably won’t apologize, either. But they don’t need apologies; they’re not in middle school or whatever. They can just go back to how it was before.

Before Cobb showed up and gave Arthur, however abstractly, his little brother back.

All at once, Arthur knows he can’t leave Cobb, as much as he would love to right now. Because despite it all, Cobb is a good man, and Arthur knows it. Dangerous, unstable, but good. He’s just fucked up from losing his wife. Arthur knows a thing or two about losing people. It’s no reason to go and let another couple of kids in the world lose both parents because of dreams.

A text message pings into his phone, and he puts his bag over his shoulder, goes to Cobb’s room to inform him that the helicopter is on the roof waiting for lift off. He still wants to find Eames, but he will get Cobb home, first, because the sooner he’s home the sooner he’s out of everyone’s hair here and the sooner a family is a family again.

Maybe even Cobb will find a way to make up with Esca, and he’ll catch him up on how Arthur is doing.

Climbing up to the roof, Arthur realizes how much he thinks he likes the idea of Cobb telling Esca all about him. _He’s in love, I think. With this guy called Eames. He’s English. Hey, like your mom was, right_?

For the first time since this morning, Arthur relaxes and feels something like contentment; if Esca knows then it would somehow be more real, these feelings he’s always had for Eames.

Maybe before finding Eames, he’ll go to LA and drop in on Esca himself. There are certainly one or two apologies left to make there. And it would make Nana happy.

But these thoughts are shot in the face when the helicopter door opens and it’s not Arthur’s friends in there.

Sixty seconds after that, Nash drops off the side of the building and Arthur is in the helicopter with Cobb and Saito, flying over Tokyo and being given an ultimatum.

Inception. Or death.

But the way Arthur sees it his choices are death tonight or death in a few days, so of course he chooses the one that buys them a little more time.

Fear starts creeping up Arthur’s spine, a kind of terror he always knew would be there if this precarious life of law-breaking that he’s been building were to collapse all around him.

Death.

Oh, the irony. This should have been the easiest job, but it’s going to be how he dies.

Dies without Eames.

Without ever knowing how Eames would kill him if asked.

Or how much Eames would really care.


	10. Jealousy Games

**Chapter 10: Jealousy Games **

Eames will not go back, and he won’t call Arthur. He stations himself in Mombasa. He gambles and he drinks and keeps an eye on the free-lance chemist, Yusuf, because one of these days Arthur will stop by for more compounds and that will be close enough to Arthur crawling back on his knees that Eames will be able to talk to him but keep his pride, too.

Until then, he focuses on getting over certain half-woven dreams about some kind of happily ever after with the young point man, and sleeps with as many young, dark-haired, good looking tourists as he can seduce.

Right now, he has an astonishing hangover and gambling always helps the medicine go down, so that’s what he’s doing when someone familiar appears at his side.

“Rub ‘em together all you want, they’re not going to breed,” Cobb teases.

Irked, the forger bets his last chips and loses. He would blame Cobb for bringing sudden bad luck, except Eames hasn’t had good luck for a while.

He lets Cobb buy him a drink and keeps a hold of his rising panic. He doesn’t like that it’s Cobb of all people who has looked him up. Where’s Arthur? What’s happened to Arthur?

“Inception,” Cobb says, “Don’t bother telling me it’s impossible because Arthur already has.”

“Arthur? You’re still working with that stick in the mud?” he plays it causal but his relief is prickling over his skin. It’s for this reason that he agrees to help Cobb pull off the impossible. Inception.

Seeing Arthur again.

Okay.

|           |           |           |

“How’s your brother doing?” Nana asks Esca, voice sounding kind of far away from her speaker phone because she’s cooking.

Esca drops his head back on his seat, rolling his eyes up to the roof of the car, “Nan, how the fuck should I know? You’re the one who talks to him. Not me.”

“Alright, alright, don’t get short with me. I just haven’t heard from him, and I was hoping maybe you have.”

A slither of worry snakes through his guts, but he quells it and bites, “It’s been a few days since he attacked any of my clients. That’s all I know or care about.”

“Now, come on. How do you know it’s been him doing all that?”

“Of course it’s him! Don’t tell me he has you convinced he sells insurance or something.”

Nana laughs, “There are plenty more extractors in the world than him, that’s all I’m saying.”

“And it looks like they’re winning right now,” Esca sighs, distraught, “I really don’t think we’re going to make it through this.”

“Oh, luv, don’t get all wibbly on me,” Nana sighs, voice hard like it always was when she kept him in line as a kid. “I know you’re going to be just fine no matter what happens. Hear me?”

“Yes, miss.”

“Now what are you doing, exactly?”

“I’m in the car on the way back from lunch. Why?”

“Having fun?”

“Oh, loads,” Esca replies drily.

“You must do _something_ for fun.”

“Fun is for people who aren’t under investigation!”

“That’s a load of shit. You just want to wallow. I know you Esca Lionel MacCunoval, and I’m not going to stand for it. Now what was the last fun thing you did?”

 _Fucked Marcus Aquila like we were porn stars_ , “Oh, you know, this and that.”

“Well, whoever they are, give the best ones a call back tonight, and be sure to make them all use a condom.”

“Christ, _NAN_!”

The old woman is cackling happily. “Or is it just _one_ bloke every time? It is, isn’t it? He’s handsome I bet. What’s his name?”

“Piss off; it’s none of your business.”

“ _Well_. He must be _very_ handsome.”

“You do realize I’m not fourteen and embarrassed about dating anymore, right?”

“So you _are_ dating, then?”

Esca clears his throat, “I haven’t the time.”

“ _Make_ the time!” Nana practically shrills, “Believe me one day you’ll be too old for the fun stuff, and you’ll be sorry you didn’t take more cock when you could.”

Smiling, Esca says, “I’m beginning to think old age is turning you into a crass old lady.”

“Go right ahead and think that if it makes you feel better about me, dear. But this is who I am.”

With a sigh, Esca decides this conversation has gone on long enough. Any longer and she’s going to realize she still hasn’t heard the story of what happened between him and the last boyfriend she ever heard any details about, and she hasn’t yet realized that Lee has, in fact, been the _last_ boyfriend. Period.

“Listen, it was good to hear your voice, Nan, but I have to go now.”

“Alright. My boys are such busy men these days. Call again soon, luv.”

“I will.” He won’t.

As he hangs up, the car pulls to a stop at a light, and Esca, through the tint in his window, is made curious by a rather large crowd outside a bookshop until his eye is caught on a sign standing on the corner. **Marcus Aquila** reads in big bold print on it.

Apparently the man has an autobiography just out, and he’s at this book signing _right now_.

Craning, Esca sees inside the propped-open shop door, but he has to lower his window to see clearly. Yep. That’s Marcus in there at a table, smiling warmly at each person who approaches with a book. The face of his watch glints in the low afternoon light as he  
flicks his pen over the page. He’s in a grey and white sweater, no tie, jeans, and yet he’s still handsome.

Esca lifts his window once more and sits back in his seat, deliberating.

Marcus probably wouldn’t mind company, and this thing could very well last until dinner. And it’s not like Esca has a lot going on, just the same old conversations with his lawyers; he can certainly push those back a bit…

Realizing his thoughts, he huffs and shakes his head, fiddles with his phone. Ridiculous. _It’s not like you won’t see him tomorrow, dream with him, and fuck him. No reason to spend extra time with him. None at all_.

“Christ, Bob, can’t you creep through this light or something?” Esca snaps at the driver.

Tom, in the front seat, twists around, “His name is _Clint_ , Mac. And what’s your big hurry all of a sudden?”

“I--“ his phone rings and he answers it without even looking. “Mac.”

“Is that your car sitting out there?” Marcus’ voice asks.

Esca startles and very nearly dives sideways in his seat so as not to be seen through the high-grade tint of his window. He doesn’t, but only just. “Er--What are you talking about?”

“It is you,” Marcus’ voice is smiling. “Clint has his window rolled down and I think I see Tom’s hair.”

“Christ,” Esca murmurs, trying to think when Marcus could have learned the names of Esca’s drivers better than he ever has.

“What are you doing here?”

“I’m not _there_. I’m _here_ in traffic which happened to stop moving right in front of you.”

“Dreams do come true!” Marcus cries, silly but adorable, and Esca hears a close girl-laugh and then Marcus murmurs away from the phone, “There you go, sweetie. Hope you enjoy it.”

“Don’t call them sweetie, Marcus. Now she’s going to go home and decide what she’ll name your kids.”

“Hey, I’m sorry how things went yesterday. You were being straight with me, and it was uncool of me to bait you about it.”

“Just forget it happened.”

“Done,” Marcus chirps and then, laughing, Marcus greets another person kindly and says to Esca, “Listen, I can’t be on the phone while I do this. Come inside.”

“No.”

“Just come in. Five minutes. Do something _fun_ for a change.”

“Watching you sign pages is fun?”

“How about I get you to read out chapter seven for the people waiting in line?”

“What’s chapter seven?”

“My first time with a man,” Marcus answers with complete ease and then laughs, and says to someone else, “No, I’m not joking. It really is. Read it, I’d bet you’d like it.” And then there is more laughing but this is not girl laughter. It’s boy laughter. _Flirty_ boy laughter.

A sudden fire in Esca has him looking up front to Tom, who has been looking back with an amused and curious quirk in his lips. His eyes seem to be asking the same question as Marcus: w _hy don’t you just go in?_

He draws in breath and says, “Fine.” He snaps the phone shut and speaks to the driver, “Clint, we’re getting out here. Find somewhere to park.”

Esca is overly self-conscious as he steps into the shop. Marcus smiles broadly when he sees him and waves him over, pulls out a chair on his side of the table. A fan is at the table and as Marcus personalizes his signature for her, he makes introductions, “This is my good friend, Mac.”

“Hi,” the girl says kindly to him. Esca nods, trying to remain cool as the voices in his head ask him what he’s doing.

When the girl is gone, Marcus turns to him, “Thanks for coming in.”

“Thought I might as well make sure you’re doing your setting totem meditations.”

“Oh, come on, don’t make this about work.”

“Humor me until your sub security proves to be competent.”

Marcus groans, but his lips are quirking in the corners. He gives Esca a sidelong look, “Okay. I guess I can humor any excuse you need until you’re comfortable with just spending time with me.”

“That is _not_ \--“ Esca cuts himself off, voice too loud for a bookshop. Casting around the place, he finds Tom leaning on the wall, reading Marcus’ book; no doubt perusing chapter seven just to annoy Esca.

“We’re good together, Esca,” Marcus whispers, turning to him with an elbow on the table and his weight dragging him in closer. “I know you feel it, too.”

“That’s just sex,” Esca snaps back in a hiss, “stress relief. Nothing more to it.”

Green eyes narrow and Esca wants to leave, being too rich to let people just look right through him like this. Shaking his head, Marcus gives a little smile, “Still haven’t told me, you know.”

“What?” Esca asks, flipping open the top book on a stack and skimming the table of contents. The corners of his mouth tug upwards as he reads the chapter titles that correspond to milestones in MFA’s career that Esca can remember geeking out about back when he was nothing but a fan boy with no worries beyond getting his homework done in time to watch MFA’s reality show.

The glimmer of happy memories is ripped to shreds when the celebrity makes himself clear.

“Why you…. _hate_ me and _everything_ I stand for? Isn’t that the way you put it?”

“Well,” Esca thumps the book closed, blocking out the dark memories threatening to come into the light and feeling something sharp and ice cold turn over in his chest as his stomach knots shut, “Maybe I ought to just write a big stupid auto biography and let the whole world know all about it.”

“I’d be happy to recommend my ghost writer,” Marcus says matter-of-factly, “and I’d be the first in line for a personalized signed copy,”

“Sure,” Esca snorts, “I’d sign it to say: To Marcus, unlike you and yours _I_ wrote this book because I actually _do_ everything that I take credit for. E. MacCunoval, BWS Inc.”

Marcus sucks in air through his ringed lips, winces at Esca, “Burn!” he laughs, “ _Damn_ , you can be mean.”

Laughing as well, Esca only _just_ manages not to apologize, and he’s weirdly happy that Marcus has not taken offense or tried to dig any deeper. In expected Aquila form, he has let Esca’s mean word-vomit be nothing but water off a duck’s back instead of rising to the taunt and turning it into a public scene.

The unexpected positive reaction plus the cover picture of the book which shows a pre-crippled MFA pushes Esca to actually give something of an apology when he admits, “Well maybe I’d do a post script that says _but one thing I’ve never done is sacrifice my leg for the lives of others. Stop thinking the cane’s a problem_.”

This sobers the soldier right up, and he looks away, face shadowing a bit. Esca feels awkward for having said anything so kind so out of the blue and clears his throat, but there’s nothing else to say.

Marcus signs a few books in silence and then, noticing Tom, snickers and calls, “Hey, Tommy, you’re skipping ahead!”

Tom looks up, beaming with thumbs up, “ _Stunning_ detail on the sex scene in chapter five, my friend. Well done. Was she _really_ a Victoria secret model?”

Several in line curiously flick open their books. Marcus, laughing, calls out to those in line, “He’s joking. He’s kidding. Chapter five is about battle. It’s in Iraq, not the bedroom.”

“So no sex with models, then?” asks a disappointed-sounding guy.

“You kidding? I WAS a model, dude. There was _tons_ of it. But I have too much class to give away details to complete strangers like that, come on.”

The line chuckles and the girls go _awe_ and there is a little joking applause in honor of a true gentleman and Esca finds himself laughing about the time a flash of light goes off in their faces.

Shit, cameras are here. Time to go.

As Marcus is still laughing with his fans about his joke, busy signing two books for one person, Esca stands and drops a hand on his arm, “I should go. Good seeing you.”

“But, wait--“

“We’ll see you tomorrow,” Esca cuts in and signals to Tom who looks up from the book. He holds up an index finger to Esca and has the audacity to scurry ahead of the line at the table to murmur to Marcus, “I’ll get you to sign it some other time.”

“No problem, Tommy. See you tomorrow. And, Esca, really. Thanks for coming.”

Esca, already on the way out, only raises a hand to signal he heard.

|           |           |           |

Arthur had tried, in his subtle way, to talk Cobb out of going to get Eames for this job. For one thing, it’s COBOL’s backyard thus a very stupid move in general, but Arthur isn’t ready to deal with Eames’s stupid delusions. And this Inception if far too delicate a job to do with that kind of distraction weighing on two team members. But, of course, Cobb went to Mombasa anyway.

Well, Eames _is_ the best, after all, and no one can expect Cobb to want anyone but the best to help him on this chance to go home…

But still, Arthur feels absurdly nervous to see his old friend again. He pretends he isn’t, but he is.

Until Eames waltzes right into the warehouse, hand in one pocket and head down. His green eyes barely focus on him, practically slide right off of him as he gives a cheery, “Arthur, I can’t believe Cobb hasn’t gotten you killed yet.” Then with a motion over his shoulder, “This is Yusuf, there’s no one with better compounds, you’ll like him. Oh hello, who’re _you_ , sweetheart?” he asks Ariadne, immediately turning on his I’m Straight and I Like You, Pretty Puppet charm.

Arthur sighs and just as soon as Ariadne murmurs her excuses and gets away from the sleazy Brit, Arthur crowds him near the coffee maker in the corner, “So are you over yourself?”

“Never, my love,” Eames teases, “You of all people know I will forever be stupidly in love with _me_.”

“Eames,” Arthur growls through his teeth, “You have better have gotten that teenaged girl shit from the Stein job out of your system because if we fuck this up, we’re dead. _I’m_ dead, and if I’m dead, I will be back to drag you ass to hell.”

Eames puts on a lecherous smile that Arthur can tell is forced as he says, “Oh, my pretty Arthur, it warms my heart to know you couldn’t go anywhere without me. It truly does.”

“Goddammit, Eames!” Arthur hisses but Eames is already walking away.

|           |           |           |

When checking into their hotel, Cobb makes a joke about Arthur booking one too many rooms for the team.

“What?” Arthur huffs in pure surprise. Cobb claps him on the shoulder, “Come on, Art. I got your rock-em-sock-em cowboy back for you, now have fun with him.”

Arthur snorts, “My _rock-‘em-sock-em-cowboy_? I don’t even want to ask what that means.”

Whistling from down the hall is undeniably Eames, and Cobb looks that way with a pointedly raised eyebrow. Arthur bites the inside of his cheek and looks down. He wants to throttle Cobb for playing match maker or whatever. This is none of his business.

Cobb winks when Arthur meets his eye again and says, “You’re a great pal, Arthur, but I never meant to steal you from your best friend. So from now on, let’s make sure we aren’t misunderstood, okay? You are not getting any more of _this_ ,” he makes a motion to indicate his body and Arthur laughs fully because Cobb can be a real dork sometimes, and he nods.

“Okay,” he holds out a hand and Cobb takes it, they throw their arms around each other’s shoulders and then Arthur turns to his private room. “Night.”

“Night,” Cobb echoes and shuts his door. Eames rounds the corner just then and stops whistling at the sight of Arthur. He frowns, looks to Cobb’s closed door and asks,

“Lover’s quarrel?”

“Not in the slightest,” Arthur quips amiably, but Eames doesn’t break stride and goes right into his room, shutting the door behind him without another word.

Arthur stands, whole system ringing with rejection, in the hallway. For one wild moment he’s going to barge into Eames’ room and--and--

But then laughter from behind the closed door is not Eames, and it’s followed by a thump and more boyish giggling.

Arthur quickly walks backwards until he bumps into his own door. But before he finds the key card to open it and escape inside, someone rounds the corner at the end of the hall. Saito’s brow is set in deep thought until his eyes alight on Arthur and then his expression changes into something decidedly more inviting. The way his dark eyes quietly and approvingly appraise Arthur has not been lost on the point man and considering how the thought of trying to get to sleep alone tonight doesn’t sound appealing, he gives Saito a sexy smirk.

“Arthur,” Saito greets, low and warm, eyes lingering with open suggestion on him as his long strides carries him past.

Arthur turns to keep him in his sights, returning, “Saito-san.”

Saito pivots as if Arthur’s voice has caught him and his smile is big, crinkling his eyes and cheeks, “Care to join me?”

“I’d love to.”

|           |           |           |

The next morning, Arthur locks himself in Saito’s bathroom for his morning routine. He grooms and dresses and talks to himself very sternly in the mirror.

Last night didn’t mean anything. His hands are shaking because the nightmare had been different last night. Sex with no blood, at least until the end, when he’d asked Eames to stab him. The intensity with which Arthur had wanted it, needed it--it makes his face pale just thinking about it. He takes a deep breath, leveling his meanest glare at himself.

Focus, relax, _think_ … It was all just a metaphor, hopefully. But it didn’t make sense…why would he want Eames to do that? Why would he want to die?

Saito knocks on the door. “Are you nearly finished in there?”

“Yeah, hang on a minute,” Arthur quips casually. He runs the tap for a second, cuts it off, shifts things around just to sound like he is doing stuff in here. His heart is pounding.  Focus, relax, _think_ … Can he… can he really be feeling suicidal because he spent the night with someone Eames despises?

Arthur looks at himself in the mirror again and smirks. Guilt…it’s true; he feels guilty. It’s straight up _guilt_ for fucking a man for revenge. But that’s really no different than what he’s ever done, so…so why now? What has changed?

Arthur meets his own eye again, and knows the answer. It’s not what but who. Saito is different than the usual hookups. He knows Saito, works with him. And Saito wined and dined him and treated him like a prince, or something, like it was a real date--and Arthur _liked it_.

He rolls his dice with new vigor, happy to find that this is reality when he can’t change the tacky wallpaper. With a satisfied smirk in the corner of his mouth, he straightens his tie. He liked it, damn it, and he deserves it. He has nothing to be ashamed of.

After all, Eames has made no claims over Arthur beyond friendship and has no say in who he spends the night with, just like Arthur can’t tell Eames to stop fucking teenagers.

Maybe it is time to stop living to please that bastard.

The thought is a revelation, and Arthur lets Saito into the bathroom with a cool exterior disguising his sudden queasy stomach. Has his whole career--which basically translates into his entire adult life-- _really_ been about pleasing Eames? And for what? To be snubbed? Fuck that.

As Saito prepares his shower, Arthur gives a grin to silently praise last night. Saito looks pleased but checks the time. “Would you share breakfast with me? I have a proposal I hope you are interested in.”

“Downstairs?”

“After my shower. I will meet you there.”

“Excellent,” Arthur says, feeling tingling in his fingertips at this professional angle to handling sexual encounters. Drunken bangs and hasty exits the next morning (Arthur’s usual MO) feels unbelievably childish compared to this. Huh.

Leaving Saito to the privacy of his morning routine, Arthur changes into a new suit in his room, and then makes his way down to breakfast riding a very strange high. Not giving a shit about what Eames thinks, building this sphere in his life that has absolutely nothing to do with the forger, it makes Arthur feel…. _free_.

At least until Eames walks into the dining room and the weight of their partnership crashes onto him like an out-of-control bulldozer. Nearly ten years with this man at his side. His best friend--he doesn’t want to lose that. Can’t they at least be friends?

When Eames sees Arthur sitting alone at a table for two, he pauses and something in Arthur sparks with hope. But then the asshole walks right by him with a look on his face that says it all. _Still quarrelling with Cobb? I told you he was nothing but trouble._

Arthur pointedly ignores him, trying to school his face into stoic indifference as he reads the paper and waits for Saito. He’ll figure the friend thing out later. After his date with Saito. Not long after Eames seats himself in front of a lanky teenager with died black hair and face piercings, Saito arrives with his usual smile. “Did you wait long?”

“Not at all,” Arthur says happily, allowing himself to smile broadly as Relief mixes with this new facet of Elegance in his love life to form a toxic sense of Revenge on Eames and his little Emo-boy. In his peripherals, Arthur deeply enjoys the way Eames forgets about his pancakes and studies this table instead.

“I am glad you agreed to meet me,” Saito says as if they hadn’t just slept in the same bed, because this is _business_. Arthur smiles, slightly charmed by the matter-of-fact way Saito keeps the two spheres separate. So clean. So easy. Way better than Eames’ tendency to blend work and pleasure--no wonder things have gotten so complicated. Without boundaries, one little thing like a new boyfriend makes it all fall apart at the seams when it just doesn’t have to.

“I’ve been eagerly waiting. We work so well together, I see a bright road ahead for any partnership you may be willing to participate in.”

Saito looks deeply satisfied and a little bashful as he laces his fingers. “Indeed. I would be happy to call on you whenever I have need.”

Arthur winks. Saito glances down, throat pulsing, smile twitching. Then he remembers to be cool business again, “As you are aware, I have agreed to clear all of Cobb’s charges when this job is successful. It will be a simple matter of proving his innocence.”

“How are you going to do that? It’s impossible. She was the only witness and she’s dead. His only angle is her insanity.”

“A toxicology report has been brought to my attention, one that proves the serums were compromised.”

“Yeah, they worked in the Research and Development lab, Cobb told me they were attempting to replicate dreams within dreams to thwart us. Why haven’t I heard about this report?”

“It is being kept a secret for now. MacCunoval cannot let it see the light of day or he is ruined.”

“Why? They push the edge of the envelope at BWS, that’s their thing. Of course the serum was altered.”

“But Cobb and his wife never signed wavers stating they knew the risks. With such an angle Cobb can prove his wife’s insanity and walk free.”

“But,” Arthur’s stomach knots. “But Mac…you’re right, he’ll be _ruined_.” Arthur’s mind races. Wavers; Esca needs wavers. His eyes slide over to the highly skilled forger, who looks away casually, forces a smile at the Emo-guy. But if he forges Esca wavers then he condemns Cobb and vice versa. Not that Eames would care either way.

But Arthur just can’t cut either one of them lose.

“How do I play into this?” he asks Saito, who smiles. “I have a friend in pharmaceuticals. MacCunoval’s very own supplier, actually. Charles is willing to recall the batch of serum in exchange for information on his competitor.”

Arthur almost laughs. Almost. “Aquila.”

“Precisely. I have sworn to release you after the Inception, and I will keep my word, but after our discussion last night, I was rather hoping you would help as a friend.”

Another smile tugs at the corners of Arthur’s mouth at the pseudonym for sex. They hadn’t even spoken beyond typical dirty talk. Still sensing Eames’ attention on him, Arthur grins coyly at Saito and puts the toes of their left shoes together. One dimple shows in Saito’s cheek as he nudges back and winks.

Cobb breezes past in that moment, pushing wet hair out of his face; he’s been in the pool and is shrouded in the hotel robe and flip-flops. “Hey, morning,” he says amiably, not even pausing to chat. He grabs a bagel and heads back upstairs, spotting Eames a few tables away and lifting a hand to wave.

Arthur puts his fingertips on his lips to control his mirth at the perfect timing. He wants Eames to see that he is surrounded by friends and lovers and he doesn’t need him. It feels good; like ripping off a band aid. Fresh new skin. He cracks his knuckles and refocuses on the discussion.

“I have found Aquila’s sudden interest in shields very intriguing,” Arthur comments. “I’ve been considering a freelance thing, but if there is something specific to extract the whole thing is easier. What does Charles want to know exactly?”

“Anything you can find. He, like you, does not believe Aquila has saved MacCunoval for no reason. He is protecting something. You must find out what that is.”

“And what do I get in return?” Arthur asks.

Saito smiles. “I was hoping you would consider last night the first payment?”

Arthur’s eyebrows lift. “Mr. Saito, I usually deal with cash.”

“And why is that?”

“Because--“ Arthur stops talking when he realizes his answer is that he can’t pay his team if he is paid with sex. But he if he is to do this, he can’t have a team. He’ll have to do this solo if he has any chance of confronting his brother and keeping their kinship a secret. He laughs and shakes his head. “You know what? Last night has convinced me. We’ll need to establish the worth of each night, but I would greatly enjoy getting my money’s worth from you.”

“I am glad.”

Arthur lifts his orange juice and they toast. “We have a deal, then, Mr. Saito.”

|           |           |           |

Yet another client is turning to Charles. Esca slams the phone down into its cradle so hard it disrupts the bowl of jelly beans next to it, a bright rainbow across his papers. His shout silences every conversation being had by the twelve or so lawyers and clerks and assistants that are in the room. He’s not proud of his little tantrum, but makes no apologies, scooping up a handful of candy beans and angrily eating them.

He doesn’t know if it’s better or worse that no one even asks this time what the client called for.

Someone asks him if he’d like a sandwich because the sandwich girl is here and Esca waves a hand, but ends up, moments later, with a Swiss on rye. He has no intentions of eating it. He’s so angry right now that a hunger strike feels about right.

Someone else is talking at him about a minor problem happening in that there are one or two BWS spies—other than the half-assed, turned-coat spy Cobb--who are currently so deep undercover at present that they cannot be contacted and Sully’s and Stein’s lawyers are claiming that to be the direct cause of their extractions.

“How?” Esca snaps, “Those men and women are trained and licensed by SDRA--they observe and report. There’s no way in hell they have _anything_ to do with those, or ANY OTHER, extraction!”

“But Sully’s lawyers are going to convince the DA that those spies are _assisting_ Cobb.”

“They’d never.”

“They might if he’s blackmailing them with exposure.”

Esca presses three fingers into each eye, “Cobb does not know the identity of the spies, who or where they are, or what they’re doing!”

“He was in research and development, Mac. Your spies deal with that department and that department only. And it was just the three of you in there. So isn’t there the _slightest_ chance that--“

“Christ,” Esca’s wondering if his office windows open and for how long he’d be able to see the ocean on his drop down from the ledge to the street below. With his forehead on his desk, he croaks, “What’s it mean, then? If he _is_ using my spies.”

Dunn sighs, shaking his head with a shrug, “They’ll turn that into a charge on you. You know the courts have always been on the fence about letting you have spies in the first place. A bit too much like corporate espionage. This is going to sway them against you.”

“I _need_ spies, Dunn! Without them, I’m obsolete!”

“I know ,Mac, you don’t have to tell me.”

“I NEED to see what they’re up to!” Esca bellows, too angry to stop even if no one here is against him, “Would these fucking assholes expect a surgeon to operate in the goddamned DARK?”

“Good one, Mac, we’ll use that if it comes to it. Someone write that down.”

The door burst open and yet another lawyer barrels in, bright and out of breath and straight to Esca’s desk, talking fast. Esca stands when he hears “toxicology reports” and “Charles” and “Cobb” and the whole room goes silent.

“He _what_?” Esca cries.

“Well, here, look for yourself,” the young man says, “Copies of the report.”

The pages dropped on his desk seem to be saying what Esca wants them to say, but it takes three tries before he really starts to believe it. He reads a line out, “ _a contaminate found in the sector four distillation tubes_ \--wait, wait, wait. So. So it’s his fault. Officially.”

Several people cheer. Port, looking quiet relaxed, is beaming at Esca. “Mac, don’t you get it? This is good news for you. A huge win! We can _use_ this! It’s now a proven fact that your operations have always been strict and safe and fool-proof. _Reliable_ as always!”

“But, wait,” Esca says lowly to the man, “I don’t get it--we didn’t have a deal--Did Lee talk to you?”

“No,” Port shrugs.

“So you _don’t_ know why he’s done this?”

Port waves a hand, “Maybe he still has a soft spot for you or something. Look, frankly, I don’t give a damn. This is what we’ve _needed_. We can fight the attack on your spy network now that you’ve got your credibility back.”

“But,” Esca is still struggling to comprehend the reports right in front of him. “He said he wouldn’t unless--well, you know. And I refused. But he does it _anyway_? Why? How is Lee getting anything out of this?”

“Mac, don’t look the gift horse in the mouth.”

“Yeah,” Dunn speaks up, “Maybe it’s not about Lee getting anything out of it. He’s just trying to help.”

“For Lee, he’s _always_ getting something.”

Port and Dunn look at one another, wondering what to make of this information, but Tom, who has been in his usual chair in the corner, looks at Esca with a frown and confesses, “You and I remember Lee very differently, Mac.”

Shaking his head, Esca ignores that comment and says to his legal team, “He’s planning something. I don’t like it.”

“Then we’ll give a tip to the SDRA,” Tom says, “and meanwhile you can glue yourself to Aquila’s side to, ah…” Tom’s smile is wide and slightly bashful, “you know. _Ensure his safety_.”

Esca throws a jellybean at his body guard and wishes he had control of his blood so that it wouldn’t go into his face.

|           |           |           |

Taking a break from the hard work that is finding anything on Robert’s private life for the Fischer job, Arthur considers going to the room next door. Eames’ room. He just _misses_ him.

He even steps into the hallway, but Eames has placed a Do Not Disturb sign on the door knob, and after sticking his ear to the wood, Arthur hears enough to get angry.

He stomps back into his room and slams the door before he has a grip on himself. Eames can fuck whoever he wants to, whenever he wants to, and so can Arthur. He considers calling someone up to the room just to be even. Then he considers how that means he will actually have to entertain and he just gets tired.

So instead, he returns to his research.

But all interest in Robert Fischer has dried up for the evening, so Arthur moves on to some light research for the upcoming second gig for Saito. He accesses the bookmark keeping tabs on the Marcus F. Aquila fan page. On the other side of the wall, a young man exclaims, “ _Wow, holy shi--…ah_! No, no, I’m okay, keeping going. I’m okaaahyeah!” and Arthur thumps his track pad harder than necessary and enjoys the sweet tang of revenge as he works on a job that Eames wants more than anything but doesn’t know about.

Despite the repercussions it’s had on his life, Arthur is still glad Cobb came to him, and that Eames suggested they noodle around in pretty-soldier-boy’s head, because it has all given Arthur his brother back in a weird way. He hasn’t felt this in touch with Esca in a really long time; Nana’s updates just don’t yield the same results as cyber-stalking.

But ever since joining Saito in his plan to get Cobb home safely, Arthur’s been talking again with Cobb about doing this-- _really_ doing this--Aquila extraction, and he’s been quelling these uneasy feelings, these hesitations about actually betraying his brother; blatantly stealing from right under his nose as their first brotherly reunion in fifteen years.

So every time Arthur finds updated news on this Aquila fan site, he half hopes that it is the heartbreaking announcement that Marcus and Esca must have broken up because look, Marcus just married a woman, guys, we have to stop pretending he’s gay.

Of course, that hasn’t happened. And Arthur suspects that Marcus can get married and have five sets of twins, and these people will still be writing novel-length fan fiction about him fucking the prettiest boy in his life. (Arthur has actually perused a few such fan fictions and he has to say that some pretty decent writers have a thing for dick-on-dick.)

Arthur shakes his head, scrolling through the endless gallery of any and every picture that serves as solid proof in the _Marcus is actually dating the blue wars shields guy_ theory.

Esca looks healthy and happy in these candid shots, so Arthur’s disappointment that he is apparently still with this guy is lessened with the knowledge that Esca hasn’t gotten his heart broken yet.

There aren’t many pictures in the first place because this theory is only a few days old, and there have been no new uploads since the last time Arthur was on this page. The community activity is still centered on the picture from last week of Marcus at his book signing (the douche wrote a biography which Arthur must now buy and read, goddamn it) and Esca is, for some unexplained reason, sitting behind the table with him. There is a very spirited debate in the comments about whether or not this can possibly have anything to do with shield training.

 

And, okay, Arthur might have added his anonymous opinion supporting the theory that they _are_ totally fucking each other’s brains out by now, hypothesizing that Marcus’ sweater (which is not what Arthur would call a _come-hither_ sweater) looks like a gift from an English grandmother.

(Its pattern does bring to mind Nana’s attempts at crochet.) The explosion of comments this has garnered keeps Arthur reading and laughing for over an hour; he loves these people.

It kind of hurts to think that one day Nana might know Marcus, that if Esca ever shows off his family to this man, Arthur will not be included, like he never was for guys in the past… But then again, what should he expect? Arthur hasn’t exactly included Esca in his life of crime. And, sure, he regales the old battle axe with a story of his adventures from time to time, but she’s still never met the mysterious man her oldest grandson gallivants around with so happily.

Yet she _has_ actually sent Eames a sweater before, so maybe Esca has by now heard about him. _I’m making a sweater for Arthur’s partner. Don’t know much about him but Arthur trusts his life with him, so I think he deserves a Christmas present. Don’t you?_

Arthur studies his brother’s gooby boyfriend, snug and happy in a sweater very reminiscent of the handmade English gifts that come every Christmas. He believes Nana would like Marcus purely because he believes Marcus is making Esca happy. Of course he is, look at that smile...

For the first time, the point man considers introducing Eames to his grandmother… or maybe just delivering the sweater she sent Eames six years ago ….if he can even remember where he put the fucking thing.

Then he realizes his train of thought and scoffs at himself. Yeah right, as if giving Eames a wonky sweater that probably isn’t even going to fit him in the shoulders anymore will just make all of their problems disappear.

He glowers darkly at the wall that is getting thumped repeatedly. The virgin that Eames is wrecking is annoyingly loud. Arthur considers phoning the front desk and complaining, then he doesn’t because then Eames will have won. He closes the laptop and scrubs his face as if to wake up.

 _Why? Why does it always turn into a battle between them? If Eames would just…_ Arthur doesn’t even know how to finish that sentence. Just what?

Just get over his penchant for timid teenagers and give Arthur a good time already. It’s not like Arthur couldn’t _pretend_ to be seventeen again… you know, if Eames really needed it.

Disgusted, Arthur rolls onto his stomach and attempts to smother to death in his pillow. His thirties have never weighed so much on his shoulders. It means his one and only chance to _really_ have Eames’ full attention passed _eleven years ago_. Fuck he’s getting old…too old for Eames to care anymore…

 _Not true_ , he tells himself sternly. _He just doesn’t like Cobb._

Arthur sits up and pushes his hair out of his face. He has to fix this, and it comes down to one of two options.

Arthur can say goodbye to Cobb and let things go back to the way they were, when they were _happy_ without the past wedged between them, or he can just tell Eames the truth and see where that goes….

The thing is, though, he really, really, really doesn’t want to do either one.


	11. Appointments

** Chapter 11: Appointments  **

With a delightful boy waiting for him back at the hotel, Eames is prepared to withstand the way Arthur still talks lowly to Cobb in the corners like no one else is around. But it makes matters worse when Eames sees the flirty way Arthur and Saito talk over breakfast and it makes him want to punch the tycoon in the face. Fucking tourist.

If it wasn’t a shot at _inception_ , he wouldn’t even put up with this shit. As it is, he’s just had a stroke of brilliance, and for the first time in a long time, the forger gets to stand in front of newbies and show off. Ariadne is definitely a virgin, so that will be fun. Saito is a little aged, but no doubt athletic and worth stealing from Arthur. Hell, this idea is so brilliant; he maybe could even hijack Cobb.

“I’ve had ample opportunity to observe Browning, adopt his physical presence, study his mannerisms, so on and so forth,” he announces, “Now in the first level of the dream, I can impersonate Browning and suggest the concept to Fischer’s conscious mind. When we take him a level deeper, his own projection of Browning _should_ feed that right back to him.”

Cobb has spaced out, so only Arthur understands what it is he is saying. The point man’s jaw slackens and he leans back in his seat. “So he gives _himself_ the idea?”

“Precisely,” Eames says, looking at Arthur for only a moment as he admits, “It’s the only way it will stick. It has to seem self-generated.”

“Eames, I am impressed,” Arthur says. Eames bristles at the compliment that is meant to make him take a bow—because Arthur can’t mean it. He only likes this angle because it proves that he was right. Inception can work so long as the mind traces the idea back to itself.

“Your condescension, as always, is appreciated, Arthur, thank you,” he says coolly. He feels Arthur start to follow him over to the coffee maker, but Cobb returns to planet earth, so Arthur hangs back to catch him up. Eames wishes he had whiskey to put in his coffee.

“Arthur’s right, that plan is very impressive,” Ariadne says behind him. Turning, Eames grins down at the petite little girl. “Thank you, darling.”

She giggles.

|           |           |           |

“If he knew about Esca and me, he’d get it,” Arthur says to Cobb. Eames has taken the starry-eyed Ariadne off someplace, so it is only him and the extractor in the workshop. Arthur’s stomach hurts. He and Eames have never gone this long without talking. The boy from last night marks the first conquest that Eames hasn’t described to Arthur triumphantly. It’s like it was too private for anyone else to know about or something. Which is total bullshit, Eames is just trying to hurt Arthur’s feelings by making it seem that way. And it’s working.

Cobb looks up from the file he’s reading and shrugs, “So tell him.”

“It’s not that simple.”

“Oh? Why’s it so hard to tell a friend about your brother?”

“It’s not like I’d be telling him about a little brother who lives in Surrey and has his own veterinary clinic or whatever.” Arthur pushes the cap of the dry-erase marker back on and clicks it back off. “I’d be saying, oh guess what, my little brother is the guy who makes our lives hell, the one who is the direct cause to so many of our friends dying or being locked up…” he makes a hash mark between two connected ideas on the board and then realizes they don’t actually connect. Angrily, he wipes away the line. “I used to make tents in the back yard and play Tribe Wars with the projection that we all hate to see and this whole time I’ve been pretending like he’s a stranger to me.”

“Isn’t that the truth?”

“Yeah, but… If Eames knows all of that then I’ll have to tell him the other stuff: the sad story of Arthur MacCunoval’s abrupt change from happy high school junior to fucked up orphan.” He snorts and shakes his head, _yeah, that’ll happen._

Cobb shuts his file and focuses all his attention on his friend, “Telling him all of that would be a good thing, Art. Sharing stories is what brings people together.”

“That’s bullshit. Anyway, I think that’s why he thinks we’re together, for sharing shit like that when we didn’t. I mean, I can’t help knowing your history from CNN and I can’t help it that Esca tells everyone he knows what happened...”

Cobb pushes air through his lips in something like a confused laugh, “He thinks we’re _together_? What? You’re saying you’re gay, too?”

Arthur looks over from the dry erase board, “Yeah.”

Cobb’s eyebrows shoot high as he accepts a truth he’d originally misinterpreted. “Oh. Huh.” Blue eyes dart from the floor to Arthur’s eyes and back a couple of times and he admits, with a friendly smile, “I didn’t know that you knew you were gay.”

Arthur smirks. “You know, that’s what Dad said when Esca came out two days after I did.” With a fond laugh, he scratches the back of his neck, remembering out loud, “I shocked them with my news, but the only thing Esca shocked them with was that, at thirteen, he understood enough to know what he was. He was still such a baby in their eyes.”

Cobb chuckles, but does not drop their previous thread of conversation, “But--seriously. All this time, Eames has been flirting and you’ve been kinda flirting back but then brushing him off. I thought. I don’t know. That you were denying it about yourself or something.”

This perspective hits Arthur like the velocity of a jet take off, slamming him back so that he actually takes a step in that direction. His jaw locks down and breaths come shorter, fingers go white-knuckle around the dry erase marker.

 _But then you brush him off…_ Was that--could that possibly be--maybe that was why--Is it possible Eames hasn’t made a move because of all the people on the planet that Eames can see through, Arthur’s not one of them?

 _But then you brush him off_ …

 _Brush him off_ …

All this time, he thought turning his back to Eames to hide his blushes wasn’t fooling anyone. Eames, of course, knew Arthur fucked men, but if what Cobb sees is what other people see, then Eames probably thinks that he isn’t Arthur’s type or something. Or that he’s too old. (Arthur does tend to nag Eames about the inappropriateness of such young conquests. But that’s just so that he would stop fucking them and fuck _him_ instead!)

Arthur’s jaw slackens and he almost wants to laugh. _Eames_ , he thinks. _We’re both fucking morons._

Cobb is holding a paper folder open, but he isn’t looking at the files. His eyebrows are raised and he’s watching Arthur like he’s aware some kind of epiphany just happened. When Arthur notices this, he closes his jaw and pretends nothing happened, picking up the thread again with a shrug, “See what I mean? I’m not the world’s easiest guy to read, or to get close to, and Eames knows that, but then he can see that _you_ know where I come from and everything. Obviously, he thinks I’m letting you in, that something’s happening here.”

“Wait, he thinks _I’m_ gay?”

Arthur levels dark eyes on him that sparkle with pride, “You wouldn’t be the first married man I’ve stolen and turned.”

Cobb huffs, shocked but amused. “Seriously, no honor amongst thieves, huh?”

“Not hardly,” Arthur says.

Cobb rubs his face and visibly shakes off the conversation. Then he drops his chin to his chest and grins, “Honestly, though, I don’t see the problem with telling him everything. After all, it wasn’t until Mac told me about all of that stuff that happened to you guys that he and I became real friends. I mean, sure, sharing a dream with someone tells you a lot about them and all of that. You know that as good as I do…so you probably also know that, in a weird way, all of the stuff you can learn down Under is kind of just surface stuff. It’s not until we know the details that it’s special. Like the pearls, I didn’t know what those meant....I think me knowing about exactly what happened to Mac is what makes us… _made_ us… best friends.” Cobb looks troubled by the tense change and falls silent.

Arthur makes no reply, stomach dropping sickeningly at the thought of one day having to correct his tenses when talking about his friendship with Eames. He throws the marker down and returns to his laptop. Cobb goes back to the files, taking the hint that the subject is closed.

“The plan’s solid, Art.” Cobb announces. “Now all we do is to wait for the old man to die.”

|           |           |           |

Arthur watches Cobb walk through customs without a hitch, and he feels like dancing because FUCK YEAH THEY DID IT! Inception _worked_ and Cobb gets to _go home_! He gives Cobb a wide grin as he walks past the luggage carousal in a daze. Eames, Arthur notes, barely acknowledges the man under the excuse that they are not supposed to know each other. Arthur deflates slightly and wishes the two could just be friends.

With a sigh, he rolls his case over to the forger and parks next to him to fiddle with his phone. “Good job back there,” he says.

Eames grunts and disappears into the crowd. Arthur stands still shuffling through apps on his phone blindly, pretending he hadn’t said anything after all, that he has no idea who the son of a bitch slinking through the crowd away from him is. It’s certainly no one interested in staying with him, keeping him company without Cobb.

Fingers shaking, Arthur re-pockets his phone and clicks his teeth. _It’s for the best anyway. Can’t do the Aquila extraction with him around, right?_

A warm chuckle sounds just above his left shoulder. He turns and sees Saito smiling at him, “Don’t rush off just yet. You can work out of my beach house.”

|           |           |           |

Marcus is on the phone when Esca storms into the office, incensed. Tom follows quietly behind him, his lips pursed around his chuckles. Marcus wraps up the call and hangs up. “Mac, hi. You’re early.”

Esca ignores him and shouts, “ _This_ is why I didn’t want to go into that goddamned book signing!”

He presents the phone clenched in his hand. Looking at it, Marcus finds an article with a picture on it that is immediately one of Marcus’ favorites. The smile on Esca’s face makes Marcus tingle. He scans the article and smirks up at Esca, “They haven’t said anything bad about you.”

“But now the whole world knows we’re fucking!” Esca snaps. When Marcus purses his lips and glances to the corner of the room, Esca finally realizes that the uncle is sitting quietly in a chair there. Tactfully, the old man rises to his feet and serenely suggests that he grant them some privacy, but when he realizes Tom is not going to follow him out of the room, he lingers at the threshold with the body guard.

Marcus feels like laughing but knows better. He shrugs. “Just because they called you my friend?”

“We’re both publically Out, Aquila. Any common idiot who reads the paper knows publically Out plus this picture plus “friends” equals fucking!”

“But we are fucking.”

“We’re not in a _relationship_ , Aquila!”

“I don’t know. I’m not seeing anyone else. And I’m pretty sure you aren’t seeing anyone else. And we look happy together. So why not?”

Tom huffs and chortles before he can cork it again, and Marcus shoots the guy a wink. Esca’s face flashes red. “I—you—I don’t believe you. Shameless.”

“Come on, what am I supposed to say? I like you. I want to see more of you. Why the hell do you think I invited you to a boring ass book signing in the first place? More importantly, why did you say yes?”

Esca glares at him but doesn’t open his mouth. Marcus feels like he is onto something. He gives his most persuasive smile. “Come to my party tonight, be my boyfriend. You know you want to be.”

“Fine. Goddammit. If it’ll shut you up. No more public stuff, though. That’s final. Happy?”

Marcus grins broadly. “Totally.”

**|           |           |           |           |**

Marcus does not realize he is staring at the door Esca just walked out of with a bashful grin until Uncle chuckles softly from the corner he had drifted into. Snapping out of his happy, Marcus blinks at his Uncle. “What?”

“You asked to be boyfriends, I had no idea you felt that way about him.”

“Come on, yeah you did.”

“I really didn’t,” he laughs some more, and Marcus frowns at the wicked tenor in it. Throwing up his hands, he asks again.

“What?”

“You don’t know what you’ve gotten yourself into, my boy.”

“Sure I do. He’s amazing. I want him all to myself and now I have him.”

“As a boyfriend.”

“That’s what it’s called when two people fuck exclusively.”

“Marcus, boyfriend at thirty is very different than boyfriend at seventeen. I had hoped you would know this by now.”

Marcus blinks. “How is it so different?”

“Don’t think I haven’t been paying attention to you, Nephew. The last time you had a public boyfriend your biggest worry was getting alcohol without getting carded.” Memories make Marcus smirk and briefly wonder where Ronaldo was these days and what he was up to…

His uncle grumbles, tone half irritation and half embarrassment, "It was a media field day, the two of you and your recklessness. You nearly shamed us _all_ into the ground getting caught on camera having sex on that beach.” Marcus begins to interject but isn’t given the window, "But I do not expect the same behavior between you and Mr. MacCunoval. You have grown up since those days. It’s impossible that you shouldn’t have. What with celebrity and university and that awful business with Jenna--” Here Marcus shoots his uncle a dangerous look that begs _why did you bring that up_? “and, of course, the war. But are you prepared for this?”

Shoulders sagging, Marcus resigns to let his uncle make his point and asks, “Why shouldn’t I be?”

“You haven’t been with anyone for more than a few months since you were twenty five, for starters.”

Marcus looks down, sobered by the idea that his Uncle does, in fact, see how not perfect his personal life is.

“You tried with Jenna and it failed and so you reverted back to merely trying people on for a little while like teenagers do. But you are now thirty five, Nephew. I have been patiently hoping to see your priorities change. Time is now precious. You cannot go about wasting it on serial monogamy. Not when you might hope to one day settle down and have a family. Esca MacCunoval has agreed to invest in you long term and he assumes that you have invested the same in him.”

“What?” Marcus looks stricken.                               

“You’re engaged to be engaged,” Uncle laughs. “Are you ready for that?”

Shifting in his chair, Marcus pushes away the panic rising in his chest. Long term? Settled down? He gulps as he comes face to face with what had been until this very moment, a very distant figure of his future self. Married. Being a dad. Living at Calleva with his family.

He has always planned on having that someday—and now here it is time to start making it happen. Where does the time go? This is a lot like university all over again. Years of being a pin up and then suddenly the real world banged on his door and forced him to pick a school, a major, a life that needed pre-planning and planning and perfect execution. This is like war too. A broken heart comforted by a call of duty so deep and strong all he could do was sign his life over to a cause, turn himself into the perfect soldier and hope for the best.

Both crossroads had been utterly terrifying but completely one hundred percent worth it.

So Esca MacCunvoal long term?

He takes a moment to super impose Esca’s face in the shadowy haze where his life partner always stood in the dream, and finds that it is incredibly easy to imagine that lithe body next to him, that soft smile every morning.

The corners of Marcus’ mouth tug upwards. Then his intercom buzzes. He clears his throat and clicks the button, “Yes?”

“Luke, you’re three o’clock is here. She says she’s in hurry.”

“Oh we don’t need to keep her waiting, send her in here. You don’t mind, do you, Nephew?”’

Marcus shrugs his shoulders indifferently. An office is an office; he knows there will be no real privacy to consider this newest and thrilling development in his life until he gets home. He starts cleaning up his desk, trying to refocus on the day’s agenda. But Esca long term is kind of hard not to think about.

The door swings open and a blonde woman in a comfortable pants suit breezes in and greets Uncle, who says without preamble, “I’ve thought of a solution to your problem, Kristy. Now it’s a matter of convincing Marcus.”

Marcus glances up at his name. “Convincing me of what?”

The woman smiles at him and extends her hand. “Hi. I’m Kristen Wigg. Ohmigod, MFA. Big fan, sorry,” she gushes when he squeezes her hand. Marcus snorts lightly, not yet (after seventeen years of fame) passed his amusement when girls do that.

“Miss Wigg is part of the SDRA,” Uncle says.

Marcus’ eyebrows lift. Now that he is planning forever with Esca, his loyalties are clearly defined for him and these guys are investigating Esca. He cannot help a polite smile (habit) but he refrains from flirting with the fan-girl.

“I haven’t had an opportunity to breach the subject with him, yet, my dear.” Uncle says to her, “We’ve had a sudden and happy development occur just minutes ago, and it has delayed business. But I will get us back on track. Marcus, this remarkable young woman is attempting to whip that college frat house known as SDRA into shape.”

“Oh,” Marcus is genuinely surprised to learn that she is anything more than a paralegal, let alone the new head of the agency for regulating shared dreaming. “I didn’t know Serkis was retired.”

“He’s not,” she says. “I’m not anybody special. No, I’m not taking his job or anything like that.” She insists, smiling and kind of laughing in that nervous way people do when they know they are talking to a celebrity but they don’t know exactly what they are saying. “Uhn-uh, no power whatsoever. Just mah badge and… mah rage…” she laughs with her eyes closed. Marcus suppresses a laugh and looks at Uncle, who is smiling fondly at the girl.

Marcus decides to laugh a little and let it stand as his question. She sighs, suddenly a little more professional. “What Luke means is that I’m trying to fix what’s broken. I’m sure you’ve noticed that this agency gets very little done by way of actually stopping extractions from happening. I mean, god, if we didn’t have Mac then we’d all just be lost.”

Warming to her instantly, Marcus nods emphatically, “He’s amazing at what he does.”

“Oh definitely. For sure. I mean, if I could afford to let him train my brain, _watch out_ ,” she kind of sings the words she emphasizes and then laughs again before getting back on topic, “But the problem is shields shouldn’t be in such high demand in the first place. Shields should be the last hope. SDRA is meant to keep extractors off the street and outta people’s heads, but if you look at the numbers, that’s just not happening. Arrests are made every day but they get off on technicalities because it’s _never_ the big fish that get caught, I mean, why is that?”

Her passion on the topic is evident and Marcus at once wants to help.

“You’re saying the agency is corrupted?”

“Not all of it, but I’m trying to find out how much of a circus this operation has become.” The pun on the agency leader’s name is something used often in news print, but Marcus has never actually heard it before, and so it makes him grin and he decides he likes this whacky woman, who is still talking,

“I need Mac’s help if my investigation is going to go any further. His employees have been working closely with agents for the last ten years. If anyone has dirt on the SDRA it’s a shield. I was kind of hoping you would help me get a meeting with him so that I can talk to him about this? I’ve tried, obviously, but he’s been avoiding my calls.”

“I’ll see what I can do,” Marcus says.

 

 

This is Agent Wiig.

She’s sassy, has a gun, and knows how to use it.

|           |           |           |

With bubbly champagne cooling in an ice bucket, and sweat cooling on their skin, Arthur stretches luxuriously in the big bed, allowing himself to be someone else who would be over the moon to be here, ravished so thoroughly by a rich handsome guy like Saito. There is no denying that the sex is the best Arthur’s had regularly like this in a very long time. It’s almost enough to make his future without Eames kind of exciting.

He is grinning as Saito returns from the bathroom and gets comfortable beside him. “I haven’t been paid in sex in a really long time.”

“The trouble of being part of a set. Would you have agreed to sex if I were paying your partner cash?”

“I haven’t worked solo in forever though. Like only once ever, I think.”

“You can do it, though, can you not?”

“Oh, yeah, totally,” Arthur assures quickly. “I kind of have to for this one anyway.”

“Because?”

He shrugs casually, but Saito’s eyes crinkle. “I was wondering if you were ever going to tell me.”

“Tell you what?”

“That MacCunoval is your little brother.”

Arthur’s blood runs cold. “How the fuck do you know that?”

“I like to be thorough when I break the law, Mr. M. It lowers the risk. Anyway, you do not need to fret. I would have never guessed if not for my buyer.”

“Lee Charles?”

“The same. He is a scorned lover of your brother’s, did you know?”

Arthur huffs and reaches for his flute of champagne, eyebrows lifted. “Huh.”

“For whatever reason, Charles saw fit in filling me in on their crashed relationship. It ended over a matter of family history. Intrigued, I looked into it. MacCunoval has a living brother last seen in Michigan in the company of notorious criminals. Then when his own business partner breaks bad, the fugitive shows up on _your_ doorstep, and now you are the only man who can do this job. Coincidence? I think not.”

“Shit. You’re pretty good.”

“I hope that you will not kill me for knowing such a thing.”

“I might.” Arthur teases. Saito chuckles and holds up his hands, “No, please. I swear, I will tell no one! I will give you whatever you ask for!”

Humming, Arthur sets aside his glass and rolls on top of Saito, straddling his hips, and whispers into his ear. “If you want to live, do exactly as I say…”

A sharp knock on the door interrupts Saito’s warm chuckles. A voice calls cheerily in Japanese. Saito grins at Arthur, “Dine with me in bed?”

“I’d love to,” Arthur says and calls over his shoulder to the door, in perfect Japanese, for the food to be brought in. He delights in the spark of alarm in Saito’s eyes. Arthur makes sure the sheets make everything PG 13 as the young man carries in the trays, tactfully ignoring the intimate position of his boss. Saito has a really great staff. Plus, Japanese culture is awesome in that people have _tact_. The moment help is gone, Saito squeezes Arthur’s hips. “ _Maniac_.”

“I… thought you might like it.” he admits, but the erection beneath him has been compromised by the audience. He wonders why he thought everyone likes to get caught…but maybe it’s just Eames and him…

Shaking his head, Arthur slides back onto his side of the bed and rubs his forehead, trying to wipe out the thoughts that have started to whip around in his head. Eames would have really liked that, if it had been the forger instead of Saito …Where was he? Who was he with?

“Sorry,” Arthur rasps when he realizes he is shaking.

“You must have food,” Saito says, assuming that Arthur has just gotten light headed for a perfectly biological reason. Arthur pretends that’s it and nods. “Starving.”

Over the meal, which they haven’t dressed to eat, Saito returns to business. “Tell me, how does it work? You being brothers with the mark’s shield? It gives you an edge, does it not?”

Arthur nods, hesitant to reveal that his plan so far is nothing but a big brother giving his little brother a noogie until Mac gives Arthur his way.

“How is it any different than someone simply forging MacCunoval’s face?”

Arthur blinks. “What are you talking about?”

“Disguising yourself as your brother,” Saito says. “Is that not your edge? I admit I know little of the human mind, and perhaps I am too whimsical, but you and MacCunoval are only two years apart in age, correct? You are very similar, clearly. So is it not like DNA? You match enough to be confused as his conscious mind?”

Arthur huffs. “Saito that’s…” he blinks and shakes his head. “That would be brilliant if Esca and I were brothers still. I mean, like, as close as you’re talking about. Like we used to be…” he clears his throat, burying the past. “Yeah, anyway, I mean, me and him live two _completely different_ life styles…” Arthur is shaking his head even as he looks around at the elegant room and the champagne and gourmet food he is eating buck naked in the most expensive sheets in town. Can’t be far from what billionaires like Esca do all the time, right?

“…and…but, I mean, still. We haven’t been influenced by the same exact stuff since we were both, like, kids, when…”

Silence falls in which Saito finishes chewing his food and smiles kindly. “Trauma leaves very deep scars. Forgive me for bringing it up. From what I have read, it could not have been easy to live through—“ here Saito’s eyes dart to the knife wounds on Arthur’s ribs and stomach. “But the pair of you did. Is not that something which sets both of you apart _together_ , interchangeable in the subconscious?”

Arthur’s fingers are shaking again, but this time it’s from excitement, like he is on a heater at the craps table and the house is his bitch. He laughs. “Saito! You brilliant mother fucker!”

|           |           |           |

This is a guy you don’t want to mess with.

Yet he’s the guy Eames is messing with in the next scene.

 

Eames funnels nervous energy into his hands, allows his fingers to twitch and play, to hitch up his belt. He won’t look anyone in the eye for more than a second or two. He bends his accent a little cockney and pretends to be slightly desperate.

This is how they know him here.

The usual lunch diner rush is in full swing. A waitress who knows him as Tony has already gone to get him his usual. He watches a kid over in the back booth play with his chips like they are tiny soldiers; his mother seems to be planning a wedding with her friend one table over. He can hear behind him as some teenagers horse around, snickering and giggling, good naturedly teasing each other about sex and individuality and then sex again. The bar is lined with men in suits, slouching after a long day of business, thin lines of cigarette smoke lifting from beside their cups of black coffee.

“You’re alone,” chirps a too-pleased British voice seconds before a man takes the seat across the table from the lonely forger. “Where’s Arthur?”

His dark beard covers most his face, his long nose absurdly pointy like his chin, thick eyebrows over glittering dark eyes. His badge isn’t visible. Never is when he meets with Eames. He does not seem particularly surprised or worried by Arthur’s absence. But then, Eames has shown up alone more than once.

“Don’ bleedin’ need ‘im,” Eames ejaculats with his planned excuse. They’ve fallen out over money. As partners do. As they actually have done--or pretended to do--in the past. “He’s a righ’ lil prat.” Though the words are planned to sound sincere, venom from his own demons lace them a little _too_ convincingly and he covers it by darting a quick, terrified look at the man across from him, adding quickly, “Don’ tell ‘im I said tha’.”

Tony is supposed to be bat shit terrified of his notorious partner, after all.

“So am I to take it that we’re transacting business for one?” the man who thinks he has all the power at the table asks.

Shifting uncomfortably, Eames uses the terrified angle to cover for his missing partner as he grumbles, “No. The usual. Jus’… Don’ fuckin’ tell ‘im what I said, alright?”

The issue isn’t pressed. Agent Serkis knows that next time, more likely than not, the familiar pair will be back together with Arthur doing most of the negotiating and Eames slouching to the side, agreeing blindly with everything Arthur says and not hiding his trembles when Arthur dead pans a few ambitious threats to the guy with the badge and gun.

When they are both present in a meeting such as this, Eames usually does a lot of pathetic begging of Arthur not to get them killed. Arthur usually does a lot of very impressive bluffing about all manner of things from where they’ve been, where they’re going, and whether or not he gives a shit about Eames outside of what Eames can do in a dream. Eames usually loves watching Arthur as he works. His face stone cold unreadable and his voice steady, his eyes cool, lips tilted in a sexy smirk.

It’s not a secret, here in these meetings, that Eames worships Arthur as much as he fears him.

Their food arrives and as they eat, Eames happily rattles off what he knows to the head of the SDRA. He gives a few names of lesser extractors, back-stabbers like Yusuf or the average asshole or whatever newbies who didn’t impress him, always including what little knowledge he has ascertained of their work and whereabouts, all in exchange for Serkis turning a blind eye on the infamous duo. Then he rains all kinds of hints down on the big job he and Arthur just finished. His character is the type to lord knowledge of a certain value over someone’s head, to revel in the moment of power it gives him.

His fun is over and his character’s moment of cheeky confidence and pride crashes down when the agent only smirks at him and insinuates that the information isn’t new to him. Eames down shifts quickly, mentally giving Saito-san props if the tycoon did, in fact, use this channel to clear Dom’s name. He sits back, spreading his knees wide under the table and picking at things between his teeth, “Oh, so yer startin’ to play wif the big boys, I see. Yer need to be careful. Fuckin’ ‘ell Arthur saw that man silently order to have his guys throw a mate o’ his off a bleedin tower!”

“Then I won’t be climbing any tall building with him, will I?”

Eames laughs, pretending to be charmed and leans in, lowers his voice to something velvety, “Well, well, hope tha’ don’ mean yer prices are goin’ up.”

“And if they are?” the man counters. To most people he doesn’t seem to be at all moved. Eames knows differently. He’s been doing this long enough to have caught a few tells. The forger licks his lips, (he isn’t _unaware_ of what his lips can do when they are moist) and he hoods his eyes. He puts an inviting tilt in his head, “Well, lucky for you, I don’ mind a lil inflation in this market.”

The man sighs as if he is preparing to do a particularly revolting favor for a friend--but he always sighs like this--and tells Eames in low and clipped tones which hotel to be at tonight. A moment later he is gone.

Eames stays to finish his food. The teenagers behind him had gone, replaced now by a couple. The man whispers, the woman giggles. Eames eats.

He _doesn’t_ think of Arthur.


	12. The Pills

 

**Sexy Pajamas, or Esca's Deamons, or Rome Did That, or The Pills**

It’s actually been so long since Esca has gone on a real date that he has no idea what he should do with Tom. The tall curly-haired man used to tag along when he had dated Lee--but that was different. Cobb and Mal were often there as a double date so one more trailing behind didn’t feel so much like an audience as right now. And in the five years since Lee, Esca has devoted himself completely to being the most highly sought after secret-protector in the world.

As an immediate result of being that person, Tom can’t leave his side. In Esca’s head are nuclear codes and knowledge on the alien conspiracy and the passwords into the heads of every major government in the world, or at least stupid people seem to think so.

Tom is an SDRA agent by training and badge, an elite killer, the kind who does most of his work with his bare hands. That’s harder to do if Esca makes him wait in the car.

“But, I don’t know, mate. What on earth will you do in there?” Esca asks him. Mostly, he’s just nervous about his friend seeing him flirt. Tom knows this, and that’s why he looks a little amused.

They are sitting in the car in the drive way of Marcus Aquila’s beach condo. The structure is mostly large windows to take in the ocean view, and through the glass Esca can see a mass of scantily clad bodies moving to music. A huge bouncer is at the door with a clipboard, and an active security force maintains the perimeter. This is an exclusive party, no reporters or strangers allowed, but that doesn’t by any means make Esca safe in there without Tom.

“I don’t know, perhaps he has a game room or something,” the dangerous Englishman muses. “I must stay in shouting distance or we can start the next world war.”

Esca sighs and groans at the same time. “Must you remind me?”

“I was joking, Mac,” Tom snickers, “I doubt Al-Qaida is at this low key sexy-pajama party.”

“No reason to give someone an opening,” Esca replies, very seriously. “I don’t pay you to take chances. You tried to take one with Cobb and remember how that one turned out?”

“Yes, alright!” Tom grumbles, irked by the mention of his failure. “But you _do_ pay me to shoot when I hear the code word, so as I said before, I have to stay in shouting distance.”

“Yes, I know,” Esca grumbles reluctantly as he opens his car door. The sound of a thumping bass and crashing waves assaults them. He looks back at Tom with a smirk, “Hey, maybe you’ll even get laid for a change.”

Tom’s mouth bows in a barely repressed grin. “That would be lovely, but I couldn’t risk it, and you know that. She could be a spy sent to lure me off while thugs grab you, and then what? We’d be thoroughly fucked in the wrong direction.”

Esca snickers. “You’re slightly paranoid, has anyone ever told you?”

“You pay me to be paranoid; I thought we just had this conversation.” Shutting his car door, Tom leans on the car, speaking over it. “And, you are aware, it’s perfectly normal for people to be suspicious when their completely celibate boss suddenly shows interest in human contact. You aren’t going to do something stupid are you?”

“Me? Yeah, right,” Esca scoffs, not even convincing himself because just a few hours ago, he did something as monumentally stupid as agree to be MFA’s boyfriend.

Tom snorts, too, and his teal eyes snap to the front door. He points a long finger over Esca’s head. “Ah, look who couldn’t wait to see you again.”

Esca turns and sees Marcus stumping down the walkway with a tall, thin woman at his side. They are dressed for the occasion. Marcus is wearing nothing but cotton pajama pants that hang low on his winged hips. The woman, perhaps ironically, is wearing plaid flannel buttoned up to her neck, cuffs secured at her wrists, socks on her feet.

Marcus calls a greeting, “Glad you made it!”

“I said I would,” Esca says, letting a nervous smile stretch his lips. He and Tom meet them on the walkway, and Marcus wastes no time,

“Esca, Tom, this is Agent Kristen Wiig.”

“SDRA,” she announces. Esca looks at his body guard, who smiles broadly at his female American counterpart. “Well, what a pleasant surprise. I assume you’re looking for a private contract job?”

“You betcha,” she says. She rubs her fingers together in the universal sign for money. “Ka- _ching_ ,” she launches her voice up operatic style on the emphasis, then laughs at herself, making the others laugh a little too in amusement. Tom’s laugh is longest, and Esca glances at his friend curiously before shooting Marcus an offended glare,

“Since when do you need a body guard? Don’t you have any faith in the program?”

“Of course,” Marcus assures with a shrug. “I just thought since we get to have some fun off the clock, Tom should too. I called the SDRA and they sent me the best they had free to substitute for him.”

Marcus is grinning, and bobs his shoulders again for Esca, “Figured maybe they can take it in turns guarding you or whatever, party in shifts. What do you think?”

Esca feels something hot and erratic bumping around in his stomach. Butterflies. His smile feels a little queasy, and he hopes it doesn’t show. “Well, if Tom is going to allow it; I think it is a great idea.”

On the way into the house, Tom pulls Esca back to speak to him privately. “Let me make some calls and verify this before you trust this woman.”

“What? You don’t?” Esca knows the validity in Tom’s paranoia, but as far as Esca is concerned those pajamas were proof enough that the woman was here to _work_.

“Better safe than sorry.”

Esca smirks and shakes his head. “Yes, alright. Do what you have to do, as always. Just be quick, and don’t let Marcus know what you are doing. Seems a little rude to call his gift to you a spy sent to seduce and kill,” his lips pull sideways in a grin to show Tom that he is onto him and knows that his suspicion is rooted in attraction for her.

Tom nods curtly, managing to ignore Esca’s little dig. “Of course, sir.”

“And, Tom?”

“Sir?”

Esca can’t help it, it’s too perfect an opportunity to mess with him. “This is a pajama party,” he says, giving into a smile and feeling the hard ball of anxiety that has been clenched in his gut melt a little into some playfulness, “You’re going to have to lose the pants.”

|           |          |          |

Esca remembers the ways Marcus danced in their first dream together, breaking it down smoothly just like he did on TV as a rich teenager. The man had talent, and is cheering on his talented friends while they cut the rug with impressive moves that make Esca absolutely refuse to take up Marcus’ offer to “Show me what you got.”

“I got nothing. Let’s go somewhere and talk or something.”

Tom has been on the phone for an hour, but he has at last reached the satisfying conclusion that Kristen is to be trusted with Esca’s well-being. As Marcus and Esca travel down a hallway, Esca can see in the mounted mirror at the end both Tom and Kristn round the corner twenty seven steps back.

Marcus sees, too, and his lips are squirming on his face, and he sees Esca notice. “It’s like I’m dating royalty or something. Kinda cool.”

Esca laughs. “Except royalty are advised not to break too many customs.”

“The biggest one being never…?” Marcus trails off rather than say _have wild crazy sex with clients_ , though the naughty suggestion is all over his face. Esca, grinning, points to the closed door Marcus has led them too. “Is that your bedroom?”

“Maybe.”

Esca pushes on the door and takes a peek inside. It is a bedroom, though if it is Marcus’ personally there is no telling. It looks little used, as does the whole house when empty, no doubt.

They slip inside away from the blaring music. In here is just like outside, just a steady pulse and the luring crash of waves outside of the glass wall. Marcus goes straight to the bed and lowers himself on the nearest corner with an apologetic wince as he bends his leg. Esca pretends not to notice it as he steps up to the glass to look at the dark water under the starry sky.

Twenty seven steps later, Tom knocks and sticks his head in, surveys the room, frowns at the glass wall, nods curtly, and shuts the door soundly again. Esca sighs. “He’s worse than a mother. Always fretting over threats.”

“It’s his job, isn’t it?”

“Except he never gets a day off.”

“Until now.”

“Until now. I can’t believe you bought another body guard for me just so that we can…” he swallows nervously. Marcus leans on his cane, smiling, “Talk,” he finishes for Esca. “We can talk or not talk or…whatever.”

Feeling already down the rabbit hole, Esca glances down at the floor and admits, “It’s been a while since I’ve had any of those options.”

“I can tell.”

Esca swallows against the knot in his throat at the concept that his frustration on this front is obvious. He glances shyly at the billionaire. His boyfriend. Officially. He tries to relax but doesn’t really manage it. “Do you throw these kinds of raves all the time?”

“Whenever there’s an occasion. Or I just don’t feel like being alone in this ridiculous house.”

“So all the time?”

“Pretty much, yeah. Mostly I disappear to Calleva if I really want to rest.”

Esca nods, having surmised as much from his brief glimpse of the place. He spots a security detail kicking sand up on the beach, eyes on the house as he talks into his radio. Esca has little doubt that Kristen and Tom are now both coordinating the entire squad. He laughs.

“What?” Marcus asks. Esca shakes his head.

Truthfully, he has just turned to look back at his kid self, who would have never in a million billion years thought that he would one day be standing in a dark empty room with the ocean and stars outside the window and Marcus F(ucking) Aquila in the bed behind him.

Of course, kid Esca didn’t think a lot of things he maybe should have. Like that people lie and there is such a thing as evil. He rubs his eyes as if to wake up. Behind him, Marcus’ voice is low and wonder-struck,

“You’ve _got_ to be the hottest, most intriguing guy I’ve ever met,” Marcus says, “What are you thinking about that makes you scowl and look so sad at the same time like that?”

Esca double looks the billionaire’s softly lit face. He blinks. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

“Well…you’re still really hot anyway,” Marcus backtracks, refocusing on the compliment.

Biting his lip to keep from smiling too much, Esca shrugs. “I was always too busy for this. Lucky for you, one client means I get to devote all my time to you.”

“I _am_ lucky,” Marcus intones. For a quick hot flash in his blood, Esca finds he is intensely pleased that Marcus is his boyfriend. It’s been so long since anyone has had the title, and now he has-- _this_. Long, firm limbs, perfect skin, thick soft hair, such kindness in his eyes, so much forgiveness ready to hand out to anyone at a moment’s notice. And here he is, declaring himself lucky to be the center of his, Esca’s, attention.

Thirteen year old Esca would never have believed this.

“Who was that guy they caught you with that one time?” the question is leaping out of Esca before he can stop it. “On the beach?” Were it possible, Esca would snatch it back and stuff it back down his throat, give his kid self a good kick in the pants for using his tongue. But Marcus answers with a smile,

“Ronaldo. He was a model.”

“Right.”

“I can’t believe you remember that. It was, like, forever ago. I was still a _teenager_.”

“Yeah, well,” Esca fumbles over his words, hating himself and wishing he could take the question back. “I just do. One of those things, I guess.”

Marcus’ grin is wickedly pleased and he arches an eyebrow, “You didn’t happen to be one of my biggest fans back then, did you?”

Esca’s scoff comes out far too obviously forced for effect, “Yeah, sure.”

Beaming, Marcus shakes his head fondly and his eyes rove over Esca’s body in clear approval, “Ron was alright. But he wasn’t as good looking as you are.”

“Oh fuck off. What you see in dreams isn’t necessarily what I actually look like, thank you.”

“Okay. But still. _That suit_ … Come here.”

Esca reluctantly--and only because the man can’t very well come to him--steps up to the bed so that Marcus can take his hands and pull him even closer. Standing between one good knee and one knee trapped in a painful looking leg brace, Esca allows the corners of his mouth to twitch up as Marcus’ hands travel up to his elbows and then take firm hold of his ribs.

“You feel pretty ripped.”

Esca clacks his teeth together loudly, eyes narrowed, and puts his hands on Marcus’ face, is secretly thrilled to feel a beard like peach fuzz. That is never there in dreams, but at Placidus’ Esca had gotten a taste of it scratching along his neck and he’s not been able to forget it since. God, Esca likes it. He entertains himself feeling of the sensual facial hair with the fronts and backs of his fingers, discovering that the fuzz is thickest and scratchiest on Marcus’ chin.

Grinning, he leans down to kiss him and feel that scratchy fuzz on his face. Marcus’ hands squeeze his ribs, then his back, and slip down to grip his hips and then his rear. Esca gasps and steps closer.

Marcus is pushed backwards and suddenly they are reclined on the bed. Esca presses Marcus down in an animal kiss and feels a hot ridge hardening beneath his own. Blood spiking, Esca rolls, drags Marcus’ shoulders with him, so that the bigger man is on top where Esca likes them. There’s a pause as Marcus grunts and arranges his leg comfortably so that he could be over Esca with his weight on one knee.

His kisses are fierce and short, and then he is panting slightly and asking,

“Do you want to get a little crazy?”

Esca laughs giddily. This is already very crazy is comparison to his usual evenings. He’s not even _drunk_. “How so?”

Marcus retrieves a bottle from his jacket pocket and rattles it. Esca takes the orange cylinder and reads the label by starlight. SomNiCin. He looks up, face stretched in shock. “I thought you said you don’t sell candy.”

One corner of his mouth lifts higher than the other. “It’s so cute that you believed that.”

“I didn’t,” Esca immediately insists, ears a little red. “I mean, I figured _you_ had to have tried it at least once. Does your Uncle know?”

“What he doesn’t know won’t kill him. So what do you say, a little old school fun, since you didn’t bring your box?”

Esca stares at the Eagle Standard logo on the lid, and he feels his heart begin to thud in his ears, but he can’t hear anything but a high pitched ringing. He swallows and says with a scratchy voice, “I-I don’t do SomNiCin.”

Marcus snorts. “Yeah you do. Come on, everybody has.”

“ _I_ don’t. I use a somniotociphin from Horned Chief in France. It’s well evolved past your patented name-brand little pill; zero accident rate.”

“Oh, yeah.” Marcus’ face falls into one of actual thinking.

Esca takes the bottle from him and places it out of sight on the bedside table. Then he takes hold of Marcus’ delightful chin again. “I left the box because this isn’t work, remember?”

Despite himself, Marcus grins and gives Esca a rousing bite of a kiss. Biting back, Esca starts to rip away the clothes that are in the way. With the highly skilled man fucking his mouth with his tongue, Esca’s searching hands feel of Marcus’ strong abdominals and his long, bowing, unblemished back before the heated kisses are punctured with a hiss of pain.

Marcus shifts, and they both continue as if it hadn’t happened, but Marcus’ breathing has changed a little, and Esca’s mind is racing. He understands (finally) why those pills were even brought up at all, why Marcus had started to compromise all of their dream lessons for filthy sex. Marcus can’t stay on that knee long enough to…

Disappointment and pity swirls in Esca’s stomach, and lifting out of the empathy, he swallows nervously.

 _Just one_ , he promises himself.

Reaching blindly, Esca scoops up the rattily tube of drugs. A deep kiss breaks open, spilling hot breath between them. Marcus’ fingers curl in Esca’s hair as he blinks at the bottle that the shield is shaking suggestively.

“If you really want to…” he breathes, grinding uncontrollably against Marcus’ thick thigh. Wordlessly, Marcus nods and rolls onto his good hip, holding his breath, repressing another wince. He shakes out a pill and bites it in half. Esca sits up, and plucks his side of the pill from Marcus’ paw with shaky fingers.

Flat on his back, Marcus has the half-pill between his teeth before he spots Esca. He laps the drug under his tongue and smiles as he says, “Relax. These aren’t shared dreams. There’s no way I can steal your secrets.”

Comforted that his discomfort can be so easily misconstrued as a business dilemma, Esca nearly smiles, but it fails to actually stretch his lips. He shakes his head, and again words are slipping past his tongue without authorization,

“I just….haven’t since…” he stops, thoughts reeling. Had he really just been about to pour his hear out about how SomNiCin took his father from him? He wishes he had realized the extent of Marcus’ injury and had had the nerve to take the damn pill at the first offer, and skip all this awkward crap. With a nervous laugh, he says, “Never mind.”

Marcus’ eyelids droop as the first effects of the medication begin to kick in--no time for talking. “Hey,” Esca says, nudging Marcus’s bicep. He rolls on top of the prone man, minding the awkward brace, and doing a good job at burying the past for the moment. “Let’s do this.”

Marcus grunts, eyes blinking slowly. Esca can’t fight a grin and tries to remember the point of this game. It’s all about stimulation. He runs a finger down Marcus’ perfect nose. “Close your eyes, sleepy-head. Tell me where you’re going.”

“’Mgointa…Cal’va wi’yoo” Marcus mumbles, attempting to curl his finger into Esca’s belt, but the sleep has robbed him of his strength. Esca feels him slip sideways into the shallow dream. With only half the dosage, it will not last long, and his sexy dream will be evident by more than just a load in his shorts after.

Esca runs a palm over that peach fuzz and Marcus hums, turning into the caress, perfectly responsive. It’s more like a hypnotic state than a sleep. His breathing shallows and he hums again. Esca wonders just what Marcus’ accelerated mind is doing after taking that little caress and running wild with it.

The unbuttoned shirt is fanned out beneath Marcus, and Esca runs his palm over mounds of tight muscle and olive skin. He plays with one nipple and then goes back to his face, takes a few kisses. Marcus groans and hums wantonly. Below his belt, Esca detects a very tight situation. He loosens the clothing, and teases the fantasizing man for a minute. He trails his fingers lightly over his lower belly, combs the soft darker hair there, ghosts his fingertips over the hardened flesh.

Marcus gasps and half-words break in his throat; they sound like pleas. Dream Esca has no doubt been teasing him mercilessly. Feeling a rush of hot blood course through his own body at the thought, Esca shifts until he is straddling Marcus’ good leg, and he ruts a little, biting his lip against the slight friction, teasing himself.

“Ah… _ah_!” Marcus pants, beginning to writhe beneath Esca, “Please…baby…c’mon _ah_.”

Giggling softly, Esca takes Marcus in hand to see what the response to some _real_ stimulation will be. Copious amounts of pre-come slick Esca’s palm as he tugs Marcus’ cock with a sure grip, rocking a little more against his hip just to get sparks up his spine.

Beneath him, Marcus unravels in his sleep like a spool of thread. Gasping, bowing up from the bed (his thigh digging deliciously into Esca) Marcus gasps, shudders, and cries out, “Fuck me yeah!” as he spills into Esca’s hand.

Humming, Marcus relaxes back into his pillows with a serene, sated smile on his face. Esca, still rock hard and now panting for more, sits astride Marcus’ good leg with the man’s softening cock still in hand, idly teasing the sensitive flesh. He watches Marcus’ eyes move back and forth under their lids, and Esca tickles himself imagining the man stumbling around a dark room, trying to find the way out of the collapsed sex dream back to reality for Esca’s turn.

“Wake up, Marcus,” he breathes against the velvety beard. He trails his sticky fingers up Marcus’ chest. “ _Wake up_ ,” he sings, tugging his thick hair.

Marcus’ eyelashes flutter and then his green eyes focus on Esca. He smiles wickedly. “Oh, God, baby, the taste of your _skin_... You were terrific.”

Beginning to shake with anticipation, Esca cocks an eyebrow. “My turn.”

They switch positions, Esca wondering as he goes on his back under Marcus if it’s really been five years since anyone laid him back in a bed and touched him in real life. Yep. Five.

He swallows the half pill.

 _“_ Where you wanna go, baby _?”_ Marcus asks lowly.

Before he can answer, Esca finds himself in the old house in Michigan, in his old bedroom. The walls are adorned with sexy athletes. Arthur’s side of the room has some half-naked female super models peppered in with his sexy men, but Esca’s still has the touch of innocence in its decoration. Just famous movies about Rome and King Arthur and things like that. But his favorite poster is the smallest one. A pin up.

Marcus Aquila, right above the bed. Obviously there _“because the motorcycle is kick ass, Mom_ ,” Arthur had said. Such a cool and understanding big brother.

Esca is not home alone. Mom is downstairs with the baby. Dad is asleep, as usual. Arthur is outside, his turn to mow the grass. The loud whir of the blades and the smell of freshly cut grass drift in through the screen on the window. Esca’s throat closes.

This is _before_ it happened... This is when he stilled loved his father. So young and innocent and free. With a rush, Esca lets himself slip backwards away from the wisdom he has now.

He feels good. Alive. And Marcus Aquila is smoldering down at him from astride a bike, and that is always the question he is asking,

_Where you wanna go, baby?_

Esca gasps as his skin comes alive on his chest, sweeping down over him like a wave, pooling warm in his groin.

 _I’ll take you away from here_ , those eyes on the poster promise. That was all Esca had ever wanted when he lived here. To grow up and get away from the stuff that didn’t make sense. As he watches, the posed Marcus drops the kick-stand and gets off the bike. He walks toward the camera until his head and shoulders fill up the frame of the picture, then he hoists himself up into the ledge like it is little a window and squeezes into Esca’s room, onto the bed.

His smells like a billion dollars, the really rich kind of cologne, and leather. The smells mingle with the cut grass, and the perfect biker grins. _Come on_ , he whispers, crawling over Esca. His hand caresses his face tenderly. “I wanna get you outta here.”

“Far away?” Esca asks, breathless because this muscled eighteen year old really knows what he is doing and Esca is suddenly bashful of being seen in his Marvin the Martian underwear. Fourteen year olds shouldn’t be wearing this kind of stuff. He doesn’t want to move the blanket, but he wants to feel more of Marcus against his skin.

Marcus’ weight is heavy and comfortable over him, protective, _and his smell,_ oh it’s so good. Esca fits his skinny arms around Marcus’ strong shoulders, pulling at the soft material of his black t-shirt.

 _“_ I know you’re scared,” he whispers against Esca’s lips. “Don’t be.”

“Marcus,” he breathes, bucking up a little beneath him. Marcus humps against him teasingly.

“Come away with me.”

“Okay,” Esca whimpers, wrapping arms and legs around Marcus and sinking his face into the warm cologne of Marcus’ neck. So intoxicating. He knows, even though he is only fourteen again, that SomNiCin’s trade mark trait is randomly heightened senses in the dream, but as a kid, Esca just wants to believe that Marcus is larger than life and smells this way all the time. Of course he does.

Again, there is the most peculiar but invigorating rush over the skin of his chest and stomach, low down on his stomach, brushing into his pubic hair and making his cock jump. Marcus’ kisses break from his lips and go down his neck, his chest, stomach-- _oh,  
god_.

Dream Marcus does not have a beard, but his chin feels prickly on Esca’s cock, making him jolt with electric shocks of over stimulation. The eighteen year old smiles wickedly and plays with his balls and Esca digs his head into the pillow and bites back a scream. It feels so good he wants to shout, but then somebody would hear.

“Please,” he gasps, breathless and shaking as the celebrity hangs a pout on his magnificent mouth and kisses a soft line up the underside of his erection. Shuddering, Esca seeps a little from the slit and his eyes too. “ _Please_.”

“Sshh,” Marcus whispers, trailing his fingers up his pale thighs and back to his balls. Esca whimpers but takes a deep breath of that outdoorsy/biker/king combination. His skin erupts with chills from his nipples to his knees. “Oh, _gods,_ ”

Marcus hollows his cheeks and sucks Esca’s entire length into his mouth. He feels Marcus’ throat flutter around the head for a second, and then his tongue slides, fat and warm, along the shaft. Esca’s bones bend like rubber under pressure and his blood catches on fire. He loses control and shouts like he is sinking into a warm bath that is going to kill him.

When Marcus chuckles around him, the vibration makes him fist the sheets. He can feel sweat forming at his hair line. Holy shit. He can’t breathe for the musk in the air, the thrashing of his heart. He clutches blindly as his bed, at Marcus’ bobbing hair, his shoulders, crying. “Jesus. Oh. Yeah. Oh!”

Marcus moves faster and Esca throbs in his throat, stuttering, “L-look out! Ah! No,” he moans weakly as he spills onto Marcus’ tongue. The vision fades before he gets to see more than Marcus’ red swollen lips smiling ear to ear. Everything is dark, and Esca feels embarrassed that he squirted into MFA’s mouth like that. Was he supposed to do that?

Then Esca opens his eyes and remembers that he is thirty one and that it’s supposed to happen like that in sex. Fourteen year old Esca was such a virgin.

He is laying on his back. Marcus is on his good side, half over him, a heavy hand on Esca’s chest, fingertips looping circles in his chest hair, grinning at him wickedly, “hm?”

Esca nods, feeling shy, too shy to actually say how good it was. His heart is pounding and the truth is, he is alarmed. Marcus’ innocent question had changed his plans from a beach dream, turned it into a snapshot gambit, whiplashed Esca back to the nineties, when he’d spent most of his youthful energy daydreaming about Marcus Aquila in bed with him, taking him wherever he wanted to go. _Just like this._

Shit, he isn’t ready for it.

“What’s wrong?” Marcus laughs, but when Esca doesn’t answer, his smile fades and he asks, “Where’d you go? What happened?”

Esca sits up, something inside burning hot, turning pretty solid, and he feels sick. He pulls away. “I’m not doing that for you again.”

“Esca--“

“I mean, I guess _you_ can dream, but I--“ he doesn’t know what he’s saying so he stops and shakes his head. “No. You know what? I can’t do this. I’m--No.”

“Baby, talk to me. What did you see?”

“I’m not your baby!” Esca snaps. “Don’t you get it? This is over! I don’t even know why I agreed to it! I can’t date you, Marcus. I won’t.”

“Because of the dream?”

“Because of SomNiCin. It fucks people up! My family included, you mother fucker!”

“What? You never told me—“

“I haven’t told you a lot of things and you know why? Because I’m _not your boyfriend_! I don’t even like you!”

“Liar,” Marcus spits darkly. “We’re great together when you forget to be a pain in the ass. Why do you hate me so much?”

“I hate SomNiCin and anyone who thinks it’s a miracle pill.”

“Just tell me why.”

For a moment Esca is going to deny him; he doesn’t have to explain himself. But then he sees the totally clueless, hurt expression on Marcus’ face and a sudden calm blows over him at the thought that Marcus doesn’t know.

Esca realizes in that moment that all this time, he has just kind of assumed that Marcus knew; of course he knew--he was _Eagle Standard Pharmaceuticals_! But, even being the owner of the company, he’d been little more than a kid himself when it’d happened. Maybe he honestly didn’t understand…

“For most of my life,” Esca is surprised by the stability in his voice and hopes it lasts, “my father was depressed and nothing could help him. But then the world of anti-depressants was revolutionized with SomNiCin™.” He lifts his eyes and glares coldly at the CEO. Marcus sits very still and listens with rapt attention. Esca dedicates himself to a staring contest as he relates the facts, still quite calm,

“His doctor was quick to give him a prescription. By the time I was fourteen, Dad was sleeping more than he was ever awake. If he did wake up and get out of bed it was Christmas come early for us.”

“Oh.” Marcus’ voice cracks softly. He clears his throat and licks his lips. “Sorry. I...didn’t realize.”

“That in cases of severe depression _your_ answer is a comatose sleep?” Esca asks, beginning to feel numb. “Well, one day, my father woke up. He was… unstable. A lunatic. He _slit_ my mother’s throat and stabbed my baby brother to death, and that’s when my older brother and I came home from school. He nearly killed us, too, before he killed himself.”

Esca, so numb by now that the sounds of the party are on the other side of the heartbeat in his ears, wishes Marcus would do _anything_ other than sit there and stare so calmly back. His fingers shake as he says, “ _Your_ SomNiCin™ did that.”

Marcus only blinks--a slow movement. Not a single word.

Salt stings in Esca’s eyes and the shaking in his fingers gets worse. Unbidden, he remembers too clearly rushing to the crib, seeing all the blood, scooping up his little body and running, running like Arthur was screaming at him to do--sixteen year old Arthur who was wrestling with Dad, Dad who still had the antique dagger--- Esca pushes the thought down, trying to force it back in its place in his memories where he never sees it.

Marcus’ lips part with a quick swipe of the tip of his tongue and he finally moves--a forward tilt and a lift of his hand as if to reach, “Esca--“

But Esca turns on his heel and the bedroom door slams behind him. Whatever silence and numbness had fallen over him is shattered. The party booms around him, a sea of pajama-wearing bodies laughing and having the time of their lives. Shaking with rage and humiliation and _pain_ , Esca looks at Kristen and for a moment has no idea who the woman is or where Tom has gone.

Kristen, who doesn’t know the first thing about Esca enough to read that he is overly upset right now, gives him an ignorant smile, “hey, having fun, sir?”

“Where the _fuck_ is Tom?”

Surprised at being spoken to like that is well hidden on the new body guard’s face and there is a beat or two before she answers wherein her worried eyes study him. “Outside,” she says, measuredly, “Everything alright?”

“Piss off. I’m going home. If Tom wants to keep his job he better be in that car before it leaves.”


	13. Brothers

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> quick little trigger warning:
> 
> Without giving too much away, there is the mildest suicide ideation in this chapter as a result of memories plaguing the character, a flashback to said trauma may be very difficult for some readers. It is not sexual, but it does hint strongly to violence involving an infant.

 

**Chapter 13: Boyfriends, Best Friends, and Brothers**

Marcus does not feel well. After he makes it back into the party to find that Esca has in fact left with both body guards, he limps from room to room, attempting to disappear into the beat of the music or slip into that hazy place of partied-out numbness—he just wants to forget the bone-chilling story he just heard. Can it be real? Why would someone lie about that? But how could someone who lived it just talk about it so calmly?

Tired of shredding his mind over it, Marcus surrenders his house to the party and takes a car to the office. He needs someplace quite. When he arrives, the tower is mostly dark but for a few office lights, where hard working individuals are burning it at both ends to meet Marcus’ demands. At the sight of the dedication, something inside the young CEO rings like a bell, and he becomes glad something took him from the party. He should be here working too, anyway.

In his office, he attempts to distract himself with business, but an hour later, he is sitting in front of the computer screen, frowning in horror at the ancient headlines he has unearthed on the internet with the simple combination of MacCunoval + Michigan + SomNiCin. In the town where it happened it is known as the MacCunoval Massacre. He doesn’t even read all the details, just enough to see that SomNiCin was involved, before closing all the windows and trying not to let his heart break for Esca. Not when all Esca has ever done is criticize and use him.

So Esca’s story is real. It hasn’t been just another fan playing weird games, hasn’t been some cruel lie to hurt his feelings, it is straight up one person’s deepest, ugliest scar. Way worse than any Marcus has physically or emotionally. He isn’t sure what to do about this.

“Marcus?”

The voice startles Marcus and he jumps, jarring his leg and grabbing his heart as he sees that it is Uncle, peering into the office with a look of profound confusion on his tired face. “What on Earth are you doing here this late?”

“ _Uncle_!” Marcus digs his fingers into his thigh to ease the sharp pain and laughs at himself. “Scared the shit out of me.”

“I thought you had an important date tonight?”

Marcus closes his work documents without answering. The old man sighs and steps into the office. “I take it the night did not go well.”

Again, Marcus decides not to answer. He really doesn’t know how to talk about this just yet.

Uncle sighs. “I was afraid of this. I hope I did not psych you out of trying with that young man?”

“No--no, it was…something else,” Marcus mutters. He rubs his forehead. “He hates me more than I realized. It’s….probably over.”

“I don’t know the details. But I have seen the way he looks at you when you can’t see him. I don’t think you should give up on him so easily.”

“Really?”

“He did, after all, agree to a relationship, did he not? And I suppose he did show up for your date? He cannot hate you as much as he thinks he does, surely.”

Marcus hums in thought, remembering the sex dream and aching for the simplicity of that kind of dating, but at the same time, he experiences a flutter of excitement at the concept of something deeper. _A relationship_.

If Esca will have him, of course.

|           |           |           |

Since arriving in LA some days ago, Eames hasn’t slept more than two hours. He hasn’t stopped smoking. He’s barely eaten. He’s already lost every penny Saito paid him. He even put on another face the other day (something more docile and pliable), dressed himself in tight colorful clothes with lots of jewelry, and turned a few tricks for cash. It’s the easiest and quickest way, especially when he just doesn’t have the energy for forging papers.

Unpleasant, it had been the first time in years he’d had sex with people so near him in age. Most of them had been unattractive men, too round, too hairy, rank with sweat, or loud breathers, and yet he’d taken them deep in his throat regardless. He’d even kind of liked the way he didn’t recognize himself as he did it.

Since then he has made his way to Vegas and has managed to turn those meager earnings into something worthwhile (finally found some luck at the tables) and has just gone two days without stopping; he has been drinking and fucking and forging and laughing, and pickpocketing and fucking some more and generally making new best friends to hell with it that he cannot find them or remember their names in the morning.

Eames recognizes that his self-destruct button has been activated, but he just cannot stop.

He is trying to forget.

Arthur had sat at the table with Saito-- _Saito_ , the man who threatened to hand him and his precious Cobb to COBOL’s bloodthirsty dogs, the boring businessman who speaks stunted English, the man who is even older than Eames—Arthur had sat there with his dimples on full display. Like they were free. Like he wanted Saito to have them.

And Saito sat across from him, grinning back, his dark eyes possessive and confident and _taking everything Eames could never have_. The two of them had held eye contact for four solid minutes. Four. Eames literally counted.  And then their feet had touched under the table.

This picture is in Eames head, seared there permanently. A tattoo in his imagination, it is inked there just under the top layer of his consciousness and will not be washed away. 

He lays on a bare mattress--the fitted sheet had been worked off about half way through--and has a smoke as, in his peripherals, a thin body wriggles back into his clothes, moving tenderly for all the work Eames did on his little ass. And _little_ it certainly is. Possibly too little.

Possibly the youngest it’s ever been.

With nothing but nicotine, alcohol and cum in his digestive system, Eames feels sick. He waves a big hand drearily at the figure of his shame, “Door’s that way, pet,” he mumbles to the kid. Possibly fifteen years old. Please _God_ , be at least fifteen. “I have trained you well. Remember to only use your powers for good.”

His attempt at humor pays off, making his conquest laugh away the discomfort visible in his body language, the awkwardness from Eames pinning him down in the last home stretch and telling him--not asking him--to answer to the name Arthur. Eames will not look at the boy, focusing instead on his cigarette, the smoke curling out his lips toward the light fixture above him.

He hears the kid gulp, sees him shifting nervously, his hat in his hand instead of backwards on his head like it’d been when Eames had found him. (This one seemed to be trying to look like those cool hipster pretty boys who sing so well that their faces are put on little girls’ backpacks. He’d been wearing a scarf, skinning jeans, a vest with brass buttons. The vest had been what had clouded Eames’s already murky judgment. Arthur has one kinda like it, not to mention the same dimples and slender hips.)

“Thanks,” the kid says. “ _Really_. You--I had a good time.”

Eames, lungs filled with smoke, slowly pushes it out in a long plume, says nothing.

“Okay. Um…” he starts backing for the door, ready to be out of there. “Okay.” He turns and the door closes behind him, severing him from Eames’ world. Out of sight, out of mind. That, he has decided, is how he is going to deal with it. He is just not going to think about it.

Anyway, it doesn’t matter. The kid was sixteen. _Surely_ he was sixteen. (Eames hates how generous his estimations feel.) Okay, fifteen at least. (This doesn’t feel any less generous.) But none of that matters. Doesn’t matter. They both had a good time. Nothing to be fretting about.

He turns on the TV, fidgets blindly through the drawers, orders a pizza, runs a hot bath, shaves his legs ankle to groin literally just for the hell of it, just to keep his fingers busy and his mind on something totally new and different. Besides, might need to turn tricks again. God knows when he’s going to feel together enough to try for real work, extraction, again.

The thing Eames cannot stop thinking about is Arthur and what it must mean that he got into Saito’s car at LAX after Eames had popped off to slip a quick threat to Yusuf over that whole extra sedative thing. That breakfast at the hotel, with the smiling and the footsies, and now he’s with him. Still with him. Blackmail is over, and yet Arthur is still pacifying the beast.

Therefore, Arthur must _like_ giving it up to Saito. He must like it. _Likes_ an older man pressing him into the mattress, fingers in his hair, taking his orgasm from him with precise and brutal passion. And Saito must see--he must see what Eames sees. How valuable Arthur is. How utterly valuable.

Eames groans, feels--absurdly--like _crying_.

The fact is that all those years ago when Eames had stolen that PASIV, going AWOL from his super-secret military unit in England, he had done it in a fit of insanity, of passion, a blinding flash of _honestly_ _believing_ that he was picking the easier life.

Ha.

He had realized exactly a minute too late that he hadn’t. But there was no going back. At that point, Eames had naively believed that he could go _through_ , that it was possibly to keep course, tear through the heart of his disaster and somehow turn it all around, get the glory of stealing secrets _and_ the happy ending.

He’d had that naive theory to comfort him at night for a week, but then bullets were flying at his head, bullets from the American Government which were literally not going to stop until he was dead, and Eames had known true and real regret, an ache to go back and make the decision to leave it, to laugh off the stupid idea he’d had to take the machine and run.

Then Arthur had shown up, stoned and excited and ready to help, eager to save him--a perfect stranger.

Since then Eames has not allowed himself to plan on the future.

But, secretly, he always knew it would come to this. To a broken life. To seedy motel rooms, cheap pizza, shaving his legs to impress whomever wants to pay to fuck him.

_Oh, Arthur…_

|           |           |           |

“He’s not going to be happy to see either of us,” Cobb mumbles, anxiety in his shifty blue eyes. The prospect of facing his little brother again after all this time has Arthur so preoccupied that he makes no comment, simply focuses his energy into _not_ fidgeting in the passenger’s seat of Cobb’s car.

“He’s not going to trust us for one second,” Cobb continues. “He’s got no reason to.”

“So we’ll give him a reason,” Arthur said through his tight jaw. He realizes that his hands _are_ fidgeting despite his attempts not to let them, that he has pulled out his phone and is seconds from composing a text to Eames.

 _Need your help_ , it would say. Maybe he would even add a very uncharacteristic and vulnerable, _please_. God, he missed Eames so much, he might even follow that message with, _Can’t do this without you_.

And isn’t that the truth. Though he has agreed to help Saito finish up the deal to clear Cobb’s name, even though he has the plan formed and the dominoes set, Arthur is having second thoughts. Can he? _Can_ he face his brother, make up for all this lost time, become a family again and gain Esca’s trust…. only to betray it by swiping secrets right from under his nose.

Well, he doesn’t really have a choice, anyway. Not only is this the price to pay for Cobb’s amnesty, and the reunion of two small children and a loving parent who is a truly good man, but Arthur has given his word to Saito-san, who expects results. Saito’s money and influence goes a long way and his ire has deadly consequences.

Just because they are fucking doesn’t mean that Arthur has forgotten the way Saito nodded and Nash, mere seconds later, slammed into a Japanese street hundreds of feet below.

“How?” Cobb asks.

“You’re his best friend, aren’t you?”

“I was,” Cobb shifted in his seat, “He hates me now.”

Arthur scoffs. “He’s defensive because he’s vulnerable. We have to show him that even if he loses his company and every penny he has, he won’t lost everything. He’ll still have what counts.”

“Family,” Cobb nods. “Right.”

|           |           |           |

It’s a nightmare that happens from time to time. It sinks sharp claws into Esca and keeps him trapped in the dream until he is writhing and sweating in his sleep, crying.

_He’s running._

_It’s uphill the leaves on the forest floor are slippery. The weight in the crook of his arm isn’t moving. Under the palm of his hand, where he’s pressing as hard as he can, the blood keeps coming. This much can’t fit in one baby, he thinks frantically, no idea what else to do to make it stop coming out than press. The tears make the world a salty blur. His heart is racing—from the fear and his urgency and the terrain—so much so he thinks he’s not going to make it._

_Confused, shell-shocked, lost, Esca cries._

_He wants his mom—but she’s pale and unmoving in a puddle of black blood, strewn pearls. Sobs tear out of him. He wants Arthur. He’s so terrified that Arthur will be hurt, too. Dad is awake but he’s not right. He looked wrong in the eyes. Arthur should have run. He should have run, too._

Esca wakes in a cold sweat, heartbeat getting away from him, and breath already gone. His apartment is quiet, just past midnight; the bedroom the same as always tidy arrangement of expensive furniture and things that don’t love him back. He sits on the edge of his bed with his head hanging almost to his knees for some time. Not those nightmares again. He has not had them in years. Why would—

Oh.

The pajama party, MFA’s bedroom, and what he had done. Abused the pills. With the SomNiCin Guy. And _liked_ it.

_Where you wanna go, baby?_

FUCK.

He fumbles for the remote control and turns on the bedroom flat screen for distraction as he drags himself out of the damp sheets and searches for the strength to face another day. He is halfway to the bathroom with both arms over his head, shoulders popping, when the anchorman’s words finally register in his head.

“…was settled out of court today. Cobb was acquitted following a deal with the SDRA for inside knowledge on the ring of Illegal dreamers. Attempts to bring in such criminals as the notorious duo known as Arthur and Eames have failed in the past, but Cobb has presented some promising leads and….”

Esca is dialing the phone and it is ringing as the details of the story are skated over with the typical SDRA bullshit official comments. The man that answers the phone has an annoyingly cheerful voice, and calls Esca by his first name as if they are brothers,

“I thought you might call me, Esca. How are things on the top of the mountain?”

Memories as old as Esca’s love of dreaming float to him out of a part of his past that is less painful than others: a cramped little apartment in London, a group of men and women with military clearance, fat paychecks, and a silver case. Such simple days, filled with nothing but laughs and potential.

“How do you think, Andy?” Esca tersely replies. Though he shares an origin story with the head of the SDRA, Esca isn’t, nor was ever, very fond of Andy Serkis.

Sometimes he thinks back on the golden days of his twenties, back to when he was in love for the first time, living with a good man who introduced him to Serkis, and Cobb and Mal and a group of other talented minds, when he had spent his days in hot debate with them about theories and morals and the way their work was going to shape the future.

Esca thought Andy had always looked down on him for only being in the project because he was fucking one of the soldiers involved in the training research. But even with that aside, the two of them never saw eye to eye, had always been the perpetuators of the arguments in the group. While they had both agreed the technology was dangerous in the wrong hands, Esca had favored private sub security companies and Andy had insisted on a less capitalistic approach and single handedly formed the Shared Dreaming Regulation Agency.

Now Esca wonders what would have happened if the roles had been shifted, and he had been the one opposed to as Andy used say, _making money from people’s fear_.

Right about now, Esca wouldn’t mind trading places with Agent Serkis, letting this jerk be hanged as a witch whilst he, Esca, worked diligently behind the scenes, carrying badge and gun for the integrity of shared dreams—hell, right about now, Esca wishes he could have at least been that one guy who hadn’t been a part of the project but for a few days when, being a ballsy son of a bitch, he stole the PASIV and sold it to the black market.

Corporal Eames is probably living on a private island for the last fifteen years, not a fucking care in the world... How Esca would love to be him right now.

He shivers violently with envy at the thought of being _anyone_ else right now, and spits angrily into the phone, “What the fuck? You just let Cobb go? _He robbed my clients_ , Andy!”

Agent Serkis sighs as if reminded of a wonderful basketball play. “Yes and no. _Thieves_ robbed your clients. Cobb was only running with them to collect information—swore him in as an undercover agent ages ago. Had to capitalize on this mess while we could, didn’t we?”

“He went into their heads and he stole secrets!” Esca says through his teeth. “Last I checked undercover agents aren’t permitted to enter the dreamscape!”

“Well we have to say that don’t we? You don’t actually believe that a cop has to say he’s a cop when a pot dealer asks do you?”

“What the hell am I to say to Stein—to any of them—when they ask how I could let this happen?”

“Tell them the truth, Esca,” Andy says through a smile. Esca glares at his own reflection in the mirror across the room, wonders what kind of psychopath ran the SDRA with a perpetual smile on his face and cheer in his voice. “You’re just a civilian. Money, even your money, doesn’t buy the security clearance it takes to play with the big dogs. We’re sorry we had to hang you out to dry for this, but it’s the only way we’re going to catch the real players in this game.”

Esca rolls his eyes at the familiar braggadocios tone and regrets the day years ago when he had rubbed it in this creeper’s face that BWS Inc afforded him more wealth and power than some little SDRA badge, because here was the retribution—BWS Inc. crumbling into the sand and Agent Serkis looking like a goddamn hero.

“Go to hell,” Esca says before ending the call. He throws the phone onto the bed, and decides that a long shower could be just what he needs. Maybe he’ll accidentally drown.

Under the hot spray, he tries to take his mind of his hatred for people like Serkis and Cobb. He focuses on the feeling of hot water pounding into his skin, racing down in a million caresses and BAM-- _Where do you wanna go, baby_?

He could feel Marcus laying him back on the bed, hands all over him, voice seductive, eyes sincere, _Where do you wanna go baby_?

Esca sobs a little bit under the shower head. It’s all he can do, right? If a man turns his thoughts from hate, but all he has in his life is heartbreak, regret, and more hate, then what is the point of life? If only he hadn’t indulged Marcus last night then he might have some semblance of happiness--namely lust--to escape into right now. But no. He had gone and let Marcus do whatever the fuck he wanted to do. He had gone against his instinct. He’d been weak.

Why. Why. Why. Why. WHY? _Why_ did Esca take that _pill_?

A long shower loosens most of the tension from his neck and shoulders so that he no longer feels pissed off about work or terrified at the deep hole he has dug himself in the love life department. Despising himself to his kinky core, the shield dresses in his finest suit, attempting to feel worth something at least on the outside.

He has had his assistant postpone the lesson with Marcus. (Safe so long as Marcus does not go to sleep without his new firewalls in place and it gives Esca plenty of time to accidentally die between now and then. If he never sees that man again, it will be too soon.)

He feels a weird sense of closure that he had previously not known he lacked. Maybe it’s a normal reaction when one fucks the celebrity they masturbated to in high school and then tells him to his face why he hates him with the fire of a thousand suns, but now, all of a sudden, it’s like Esca feels nothing when he thinks about the billionaire.

Or _almost_ nothing.

Shame so potent he nearly chokes to death washes over him as he ties his tie. What an ass he’d made of himself at that party. Why the fuck had he gone to it? Out of some half-conceived notions of actually ending up with prince charming in the end? Ha. Some prince charming with a pill bottle on the bedside table. Why the fuck did he take one? The force of his shame resonates in Esca’s fingertips as he chooses today’s cuff links.

SomNiCin abuse. He of all people should know better than that.

The doorbell chimes softly. Checking his hair one last time, Esca turns his back on the mirror and goes to answer it. The security screen next to the door shows him the top of Dom Cobb’s head, the neck and shoulder of Tom who is standing next to him.

“Fucking never ends,” Esca mutters to himself. This is why Marcus was a bad idea. Dating is a little ambitious at a time like this, when the mere sight of an ex-best friend gives Esca the honest urge to break a neck instead of ask for advice. He doesn’t care to hear what this man has to say, but he opens the door anyway because he has plenty to shout.

Tom is in a grey suit today and looks extra sharp next to Cobb’s jeans and faded hoodie. The former employee looks very sheepish with both his hands in his hoodie pockets, hair loose in his face as if dressing for success died with his wife. “Hey, Esc.”

“Well if it isn’t Agent Cobb himself,” Esca scathes back.

“I’m sorry,” Cobb says quickly. “It was just an opportunity to turn this disaster into something useful. What was I supposed to do?”

“Hm. How about remembering your loyalty? Fucking traitor.”

“Mac, come on,” Tom mediates gently. “Who has he betrayed? We are all on the same side are we not?”

“You could have fucking told me that from the beginning—“

“Plausible deniability, Mac. You know as well as anyone the importance of Cobb penetrating the inner circles of the Illegals.”

Esca and Cobb’s eyes meet at the unwise choice of words, and the quirk in the corner of Cobb’s lips sets off a chain reaction inside of the billionaire. It’s early, he’s still shaky from the nightmare, sick from the whole SomNiCin thing, and outraged about Cobb’s sudden amnesty, but something in Esca’s brain decides to be thirteen years old again and the laugh bubbles strong in his chest.

“Don’t talk dirty to me, Tom,” he manages to dead pan, turning for the kitchen, “I haven’t had my coffee yet.”

One of Tom’s killer smiles spreads across his face as a blush tints his cheeks and Cobb cackles. Esca leaves them on the threshold and goes in search of said coffee. When he returns with an iced Frappuccino bottle in his hands, he finds Cobb on the sofa and Tom gone.

“He stepped out. We need to talk,” Cobb said, reaching wordlessly for the glass bottle Esca is struggling to open. With one deft twist, the metal cap comes off in Cobb’s hands and Esca takes back the bottle with a reluctant smile of gratitude. He has missed having his best friend around like this.

“Did you run into him?” Esca asks as nonchalantly as possible without actually saying his brother’s name, sipping loudly.

“Yeah,” Cobb says, running a hand through his hair. “He’s a great guy. We’ve become friends.”

Another one of those laughs roils inside of him as he turns on the living room flat screen as well.

“No, really,” Cobb insists. “He would actually really like to see you if you’re up for it.”

The cold bottle nearly slips from his limp fingers. Esca sinks into the cushions as if the weight of his realization is physically crushing him. “Christ, you’re a double-agent—fucking working with him _still_ , aren’t you?”

“Not working with him anymore, alright?” Cobb says through a stiff jaw. “I’m straight as an arrow now, but we’re keeping in touch.”

“D’awe, how adorable.”

“Hey, if I was just born different,” Cobb says with a shrug that makes Esca clamp viciously on the simmering amusement he feels. In the beat of silence where the joke falls dead, Cobb sobers and stands. “I just wanted to stop by and say sorry for what had to happen with Sully and Stein, but I would have been killed me if I hadn’t went along with it, and Serkis would have sentenced me to life in prison if I didn’t bring him back information, so—“

“So you sold out Arthur?”

“No,” Cobb almost snorts down at him, and then winks. “Trick I learned in the field. False leads. Serkis will chase a wild goose for a few months. Arthur’s safe. He’s….I brought him with me, Esca. He’s outside with Tom now. Will you see him?”

Esca scoffs and rolls his eyes as if a secret part of him is not vastly relieved and deadly eager to see his big brother again. Arthur? Here? Right now? He has impulses to jump up, get dressed, clean up. He clamps down on these childish hero-worship feelings and focuses on the fact that one of the most deadliest men in the world is waiting to have a private meeting with him. Brothers or not, this is not a light-hearted situation.

Esca sets the coffee bottle aside and scrubs at his face. His frozen palm shocks away the very last threads of sleep and with it the lingering turmoil of the nightmare, but he’s in a brand new one now and his heart has picked up speed.

“How did you even arrange this?” he asks hollowly. “How are you not in prison right now?”

Cobb shrugs and looks nearly as bewildered as Esca feels. “We got friends in the right places, I guess. Also I’m innocent.” His tendency to speak of his innocence in second thought like this has always felt a little off, and Esca stares up at the secret agent pensively until Cobb decides to let himself out. He smiles melancholy over his shoulder. “Arthur just needs to see you. Give ‘im a chance, will ya? He misses you.”

Esca inhales deeply, and then Cobb is gone.


	14. Reunion

Esca tells Arthur to fuck off.

Actually, he has Tom say it for him. A text message pings into the bodyguard’s phone that says _I’m not ready. Get him out of here._ And so with some substantial threats and a little man handling, Tom manages to get the wanted criminal out of the building. Esca paces in the lonely quiet of his apartment, bouncing back and forth between his righteous anger—he doesn’t have to drop everything and see Arthur right this moment as if he doesn’t have a _life_ —and his intense curiosity—after all, it has been over a decade. What is Arthur even _like_ in person these days?

When Tom returns, Esca asks, “What did he say?”

“Not much,” is Tom’s answer, and Esca won’t let himself ask anything more. If he sounds a little stiff when he turns conversation towards the itinerary of meetings with the lawyers concerning the fast-approaching trial Tom doesn’t mention it.

|           |           |           |

Arthur has left reluctantly, only going once he had lifted the phone out of Tom’s pocket. He takes Esca’s number from it and leaves the cell spinning on a decorative table near the building entrance.

 **Why won’t you see me?** He demands in text.

_How did you get this number?_

**Easily. Don’t you want to see your brother?**

_I don’t have a brother._

Those five words are a slap in the face. Arthur reads them over and over again like the meaning might change. It pisses him off and it keeps him up all night. It’s like on a job when he’s hit a dead end in planning and there’s no getting around it. It’s failure, pure and simple and Arthur fucking _hates_ to lose.

So he doesn’t give up. He continues to text Esca through the next morning. Esca gives him nothing but harsh surly words, presents a totally hateful, uninterested front to all of Arthur’s attempts to win sympathy or curiosity. But Arthur is not subdued. Esca is, after all, actually responding to his every text and has not changed his number or blocked Arthur’s. That says that even though he is angry, that one text was a lie. He _does_ have a brother.

It takes hours for Esca to soften to him. His responses begin to come slowly and they deliver excuses rather than flat-out refusals to see him. Arthur has to allow that Esca actually is “too busy” given the state of his company, but all he needs is a couple of minutes. So he cheats. He calls Nana and asks her to make Esca give him an appointment.

_You fucker._

Arthur smiles at the text and sends his thanks across the ocean to Nana before texting Esca, **When can I see you?**

Esca’s response is a location. It isn’t Esca’s apartment, and Arthur is saddened to understand that he has not won the right to see his brother’s real life; he’ll be little more than a client. That’s not really what Arthur has in mind, and Arthur has the inclination to pick a fight about it, but he staunches the urge. This is a foothold; he can work with it. He will have to.

After all, a lot is riding on this job being a success. Not only is Saito owed an Eagle secret, but some good dirt on Aquila would guarantee Charles’ admission of fault and save BWS Inc. Esca could keep _all_ of it—the shiny cars, the handsome curly haired shadow, the perfect suits, the big penthouse apartment…He just has to believe that Arthur is here for the right reasons.

And if everything works out….then maybe Arthur won’t _have to_ disappear and figure out how to live alone.

Arthur finds that the meeting place is a dark parking garage and wonders for half a second if Esca had typed the wrong numbers in the address before headlights flash and it all makes sense. Liability. Right. Arthur walks slowly to the dark car waiting for him.

This plan to reunite with Esca before the Aquila job is not because he _has_ to, it’s just because he _wants_ to. Cobb’s stories and the cyber stalking have started an itch that won’t go away without a real brother again.

This whole thing would be better—more poetic, sappier, whatever—if they could meet again in front of Nana and have the whole family together again, but no time for that. Gotta do it now or Esca will finally see him again right as he’s making off with Aquila’s secrets while he is under Esca’s personal watch. Not cool.

Besides, Saito’s brilliant cloaking idea might not even work—can’t really test that kind of stuff—so if it all goes south, then Esca will well and truly be done with him after this. Best if the kid knows a few key facts first.

It’s a painfully beautiful car, and Arthur circles it in admiration before opening the passenger’s side door.

|           |           |           |

At the prospect of seeing Arthur again, Esca hasn’t really heard a word or telephone ring all day. His lawyers and assistants have not stopped swarming him, and he _knows_ the trial will start in the matter of a few days, but he just can’t concentrate on any discussion of it. Ever since last night—last fucking night, god how could he have been so _stupid_ as to take that PILL?—it has been like the past is right on his shoulder, close enough to touch. To smell the metal in the dark blood pooled on the bedroom floor. To hear Arthur screaming from so many years ago.

His hands shake against everything he touches. He feels like it’s a fight for every breath he takes. He tries to sit still and keep his eyes closed, but then his phone will buzz with a text from Arthur, or a death-threat from Nana about swallowing his pride and seeing Arthur, or the lawyers will pause their long reviews of “how we’re going to play this in court” and will insist he pay attention, at which point Esca does not recognize himself. His company is _circling the drain_ and he has no interest in focusing enough to save it.

For God’s Sake.

 _Let it end_ , he thinks vaguely. He texts Arthur with the when and the where and faintly wonders if Arthur has come like a phantom of Death from out of the past, a harbinger of Fate, to finish their father’s work. Esca doesn’t want to die, not really, but he can’t deny the temptation to fantasize about all this relentless _fight_ being over. Finally being over.

It’s been SUCH a hellish couple of months.

A few minutes out of sight and in the car are seriously all Esca has to spare. If he puts off Aquila’s lesson any longer than the whole training will be compromised—but he pushes it back anyway because Esca has agreed to see his estranged sibling more in procrastination against seeing Marcus again than any real desire to speak to Arthur MacCunoval.

All day, Esca has felt sick with memories best left alone. Not the terrible ones, though those are nearer now than they have been in years. But other memories. Ones from before the bad. The good stuff.

Like tribe wars.

Tribe wars had been more than just a prolonged game of pretend between him and his brother when they would scamper off and play in the woods day in and day out through the majority of their childhood. It was practically a second life. They had characters with back stories. Esca had imagined himself as a tribal chief, the youngest his people had ever had. He became the leader of his people when Rome destroyed his family. As revenge, he took a Roman soldier, crippled him, and made him his slave… And when his hormones had kicked in that story line had taken an interesting turn, bringing the slave into a romantic light…

The fantasies, long dead now, that he had woven featuring himself and this imaginary Roman, flutter through Esca like a siren’s call, luring him back to a simpler age, where there was nothing bad in the world only the unadulterated happiness of fighting filthy Roman scum with his brother at his side, mud on their faces, using sticks as swords, and the creating the safest place in the world to talk about what they were really feeling; be it fears about dad or a crush on a boy or total confusion about how sex happens. That Roman soldier love story had served as Esca’s way to get his brother to tell him all about dating, kissing and sex and how it’s all supposed to go.

Out in the woods with Arthur, these things had been easy to bring up, and it had fed the delusion to an adolescent boy that the world was easy and fair. How Esca longs for that time again… To be that carefree again… Marcus Aquila slides across Esca’s mind, that big stupid, handsome face, that kind smile. Esca immediately destroys the image. The pain and guilt of having built dreams recreationally helps him to do it with ease.

Now, sitting in the car in an abandoned parking deck, Esca might as well be thirteen again, back in the wilderness behind their house, and that big oak tree carved with their initials where he and Arthur used to make camp almost every weekend. The fire pit crackling with a roaring fire that Esca himself had built and fed successfully with no help from Arthur for once, the ground hard but comfortable beneath him, the patches of starry sky visible through the ancient limbs of the trees full of wonder and promise.

But eventually even the mystical stars would make him think about home and how Dad wouldn’t wake up and how Mom seemed so stressed and sad all the time. _What kind of stuff do you think Dad dreams about_? Esca had asked his brother once…

 

_Arthur had been turning the dagger slowly in his fingers like a baton and the metal flashed lazily, but its turning stopped at Esca’s question, and Arthur went unusually quiet._

_“He dreams about love,” the fifteen year old said decidedly, voice low with contemplation. Esca sat up to see that Arthur’s dark eyes were zoned out as he stared into the depths of the fire. His hair reached his elbows and was still braided in the way he kept it whenever he was being his character. “Mom says he does.”_

_“He can get that in real life, though. So why dream?”_

_Arthur breathed deeply and hurled the dagger into the rotting stump at his feet. The loud thump startled Esca, as did Arthur’s abrasive words. “He dreams about impossible love, okay?” With a loud swallow, Arthur reiterated more calmly, “the kind that doesn’t happen in real life. Magical kind.”_

_“Like you and Ariel?” Esca asked slyly. Their hike and game-conversation that day had centered around Arthur’s side of the tribe wars universe for once, and Esca had just learned a great deal about his brother’s inner romantic, as well as more than he ever wanted to know about the basic plot to the Shakespearian play that Arthur had been reading for school. Apparently, the love interest Arthur had created for his character was named after a face-changing spirit in The Tempest and not the little mermaid as Esca had always assumed._

_Arthur smirked at him. “Yeah, shit head. Like me and Ariel. And you and the centurion. The forever and always, complicated, destined, can’t breathe without him love that is in all the songs and poems and movies times a hundred.”_

_“But I think that can happen in real life. That’s why there’re poems and songs. People feel it all the time.”_

_Arthur laughed at him affectionately again. “It probably can happen. But it’s one in a million. And you have to wait a long time before it happens to you. In a dream it is instant.”_

_“What about two in a million? If I find my centurion, then I’d want you to have your Ariel—and vice versa.”_

_“Do you believe in magic?”_

_“Of course,” was Esca’s young, ready enthusiastic answer._

_Arthur looked into the fire, bit his lip, and then set to work. Esca watched his brother adopt his druid character, becoming a wild man and chanting the ancient words from Dad’s books alongside made-up sounds that connected the weird-shaped vowels into a flowing, beautiful sound. It was kind of like music, and Esca wished he could sing like Arthur and speak different languages so easily like Arthur. His brother was the coolest person on the planet._

_Esca was swept up into the ritual dance around the fire pit and did his best to echo the chant. Arthur grabbed the left over bones from their dinner and clacked them together, threw them into the flames. When the song and dance around the fire was over, Esca fell to his knees, short of breath like in gym class, but smiling._

_Arthur swept his long hair back over a shoulder and retrieved the knife in order to carve magic symbols onto the stump. Esca watched him for a few seconds, chill bumps still on his skin. He asked because he wasn’t sure, “was that a real spell?”_

_“Course it was real you fucking cunt,” Arthur teased. But his eyes held real promise as he stuck his dagger point down in the ground and began pulling his hair back in a tie at the nape of his neck. “The magic is going to send us our true loves one day.”_

 

Esca, stupid, naive, baby Esca, had actually believed in that moment that Arthur’s bullshit play had accidentally touched real universal powers that really would make it so.

Less than a year later, he found himself orphaned at fourteen and newly, _permanently_ , moved to England. He sat at Nana’s kitchen table. He had walked home from his new school alone, because Arthur had never showed up on the school steps to join him after the final bell, and Gramps came in the back door, taking off his coat, shaking his head silently.

Then Nana grabbed the phone, dialed, and said into it, _yes, I need to report a runaway_ … and after that, in fast forward, Esca grew up, went to school, made friends, fell in love, quit school, started his own business, made billions, fell in love again, ended up alone… again…always alone… and he never saw so much as a glimpse of Arthur for fifteen years…

Until now.

Esca peers out of the window and perceives a dark haired man in a fashionable suit. His clean-shaven, stoic, nondescript face leaves little for Esca’s imagination, and he finds himself wondering more about the suit’s tailor and price than anything, and then the car door opens.

As the man climbs into the car, he unbuttons his jacket and chuckles to himself like he is amused by this level of caution. It isn’t until the stranger smiles that Esca sees his brother again.

 _Artie_.

The years have been kind to him--taking a lanky kid and turning him into an intimidating man, a hardness about his eyes that makes him kind of daunting. His dark hair is swept back, cropped shorter than Esca has ever seen or imagined it, but this is his brother.

Esca’s breath gusts out of his lungs.

“Hi,” Arthur says with deep dimples just like Mom had.

“Hi,” Esca echoes lamely. He is too stunned for language. It’s Arthur. It really is Arthur. After all this time. And he’s not tattooed and strung out on drugs, unwashed and pathetic like Esca has been picturing all these years. A strange sort of ringing starts in his ears as he stares at a face he had resigned--or vowed--never to see again.

“Thank you for meeting me. Nice place.” His smirk hangs sideways on his face as his dark eyes clock Tom’s car a few spaces away. “Didn’t think that bodyguard of yours would agree to meet strangers in dark parking decks. No witnesses. Somebody could get hurt.” He says the last part so sincerely that chill bumps erupt up Esca’s arms. In a blinding flash of certainty, Esca _knows_ his brother was the one to kill all those SDRA spies sent to catch him. He has killed, and that he would kill again. Easily.

The little boy in Esca wants to bow in hero worship of such a badass.

The man in Esca is repulsed as he rasps, “Tom’s not happy, but he does as he’s told.”

“Sounds like you have a winner,” Arthur bobs his shoulders quite boyishly, “I know it’s tough finding guys you can live with following you around day after day,” his voice catches slightly, but he clears his throat and moves on, grinning happily again, “You look good, Esca-Mo.”

The childhood nickname feels like the home they both lost, and Esca wants to smile and cry at the same time. (God, it’s _Artie_ , it’s really him! After fifteen years!) Arthur is clean, well-groomed, well _-_ dressed, and he holds himself so… strongly. In a bewildering kind of way, Arthur has managed to stay exactly what Esca wants to be, even while living so far away, never seeing him or talking to him. How is that possible?

He wants to make a scene about it, but he doesn’t. He doesn’t even let himself compliment Arthur’s shorter hair style like he wants to. “Fuck you. I shouldn’t even be here. I have meetings and phone calls and no time--”

Arthur looks offended, face hardening around the edges into something stone-like and utterly unfamiliar, “You don’t even want to know what I’m doing in town?”

“You expect me to thank you for whatever the fuck it was you did with Cobb that ‘fixed’ everything—“

“I’m retiring,” he cuts in plainly. Esca swallows his hate-filled words. He hears them. Knows they have meaning. He doesn’t buy them.

Arthur sits for a second with his eyes unfocused as if observing in whole the life he is talking about laying to rest. He looks sad. Astonishingly, Esca can still discern the subtle differences of expression in his brother, read them like a book. Arthur is _sad_.

He looks like a fucking rock star, but he’s miserable.

Esca is speechless. Cobb could have _mentioned_ this.

“I know you hate me,” Arthur says quietly, “and it’s really dangerous to claim me as your brother. I get that. It could get us both killed, I mean, you’re not exactly a favorite in my circles….but, I don’t know, man. I got to know Cobb and he was telling me all this stuff and….I miss you, Esca. I want my brother back.”

“So?” the word is little and as hard as Esca can make it.

“So. If quitting is what it takes, will you give me that? I’ve got money. Shit loads of it. Not like this,” he looks around the car to indicate Esca’s whole life, a small huff of something like jealously, “but enough. And I got—“ once again, his voice catches strangely and his words shake a little like he didn’t know they would hurt, “a friend who’s forged this whole clean identity for me that I use from time to time. Well, it’s not new. But…I can be someone else. The criminal Arthur can die out there on the streets and I can be your brother again, if you’re up for it.”

Esca is already shaking his head before Arthur finishes, “I don’t believe you.”

“Jesus, Esca. What do you want me to say?” that unrecognizable hardness is back and Arthur’s voice rises a decibel or two in the confines of the car, “Why would I be here if I’m not serious about this? Think about that. I want us to be in each other’s lives again, okay? Can you believe that? Nana’s old, she’s about to kick it. Are you just going to sit back and refuse to make up with me before she dies, when that’s all she wants?”

“Nan’s going to outlive us both,” Esca insists, breathless from the twist in his chest of intense hope and pain at the mere thought of burying the old woman. Losing Gramps had been hard enough right before college. Right now, the statement even feels true, what with _all of this shit_ pressing in and Arthur’s precarious life always hanging by a thread; the remaining MacCunovals are on self-destruct mode and the countdown is on—the old battle axe might just have to bury her remaining grandchildren before she gives up, too.

“It was never a permanent gig, what I do,” Arthur says, speaking softly again. The hardness melting away. “It wasn’t supposed to be anyway. I…you know? I was a dumb kid who ran away and fell in with a fast crowd….”

Esca glowers. “Why did you run away?”

Arthur levels him with a look that says he isn’t going to answer such a stupid question. Esca feels something hot billow through his blood and tingle at his fingers. Rage. “Why did you leave me?” he reiterates darkly. _That_ is all he needs to know. “You just _left_ me there in a strange new country with old people who couldn’t _possibly_ understand what just happened to us and—and you didn’t even say goodbye to me! You didn’t even _ask_ if I needed to go away, too. You just left me like you didn’t fucking care….”

Arthur looks sincerely bewildered and pained but in a breath, the emotions are shut away and that stoic look is back. He smirks at Esca, “I had to leave you behind. You needed space to heal after—“

“Sure it wasn’t _you_ who needed the space?” Esca cuts in. “Didn’t want your annoying little brother tagging along anymore? I get it. I do. But guess what? You picked a solo run and that’s what you get. You can’t decide when to have a brother and when not to, Artie. _It doesn’t work that way_.”

Arthur laughs shortly and it is a dark sound. “You fucking moron. When did I say I didn’t want a brother?”

“Didn’t have to say it in words. It was pretty clear when you left me all on my own with PTSD. What, you did it _for my own good_? You think that bullshit you told Nana actually makes sense to me? Bet that’s why you became an expert in stealing secrets too. Was that for my benefit?”

“Okay,” Arthur’s voice is so calm against the rising pitch of Esca’s emotions that it is disarming and freaky as hell. Esca kind of wants to get out of the car before he gets cut by the suddenly livid guy in the passenger’s seat. “We’ve had this conversation before,” his voice is menacing. His jaw and lips barely move. He has dead eyes; that’s what makes Esca feel the fear. “ _You_ chose what I became. I asked, remember? When BSW first became a real thing, I called and I asked you if I can come back and you told me to fuck off remember? Called me a goddamn liability. So no, you little shit, my career was for _me_ and I’m not sorry for it. It was a fucking _blast_ , I’m almost sorry to leave it, but guess what? I’m going to. I’m ready to walk away from the easiest fucking job in the world just like I walked away from my only surviving family.” Arthur stops what has become a rant abruptly, breathless and shaky and Esca knows this is what _he_ must look like recently, ever since Mal did what she did and ruined everything, set the whole world sinking into the fires of rage.

Seeing Arthur echo that fury is second only to an out-of-body experience.

Slowly, primly even, Arthur collects himself. With a steadying breath, he continues in kinder tones, eyes on the dashboard. “I left for your own good and that’s the end of it. Okay? Deal with it.”

Esca huffs and shakes his head. But he makes no comment.

“Now,” Arthur pops his knuckles one at a time. “BWS— _you_ —will not survive if you tell me to fuck off again. You’re on your knees and you are begging for life and I can give it to you or I can let all of this wither and die and leave you bussing tables by day and waxing the floor of malls at night again.” Esca flinches inwardly at the proof that Arthur has kept tabs on him well enough to know how he paid his way through college, or at least what little part of the degree he completed before striking gold.

There is a soft smile hooked in the corner of Arthur’s face and it brings back the simplest years. Hiking in the woods, building fires, learning to swim. Artie used to always smile like that, when he was strutting his stuff and showing Esca how to be awesome. “I will help you deal this time, if you will just let me.”

“ _Fuck_ …” Esca breathes and leans for a minute against the thought of having someone on his side, and not just anyone but a big brother to show him what to do and help him do it. He laughs with relief that’s been wanted for fifteen years. He feels light headed and doesn’t know what to say. His eyes are watery but he isn’t letting tears fall. The emotion settles after a moment, and he is back on his own again, but some of the anger has fallen away. He finds it in himself to say, “I’m….I’m sorry I was so mad at you… all this time…”

“Hey,” Arthur bats it away good naturedly. “You were coping. I get it. But let’s call a truce. I mean, you clearly need a brother right now and I’d be totally lying if I said I had my shit together enough to need no one.” Something flickers through Arthur’s dark eyes. Esca realizes that Arthur is skirting around something in his recent past, something that hurts, that makes him sad and pushes him to try to mend old burned bridges. Esca hasn’t the first clue what it could be. Arthur in his pristine suits and his hard edges, doesn’t look capable of feeling pain anymore.

“You’re sure you can retire just like that?” Esca jokes, “I mean, isn’t this sort of thing usually done on a beach some remote place where no one will ever find you?”

“That’s option number one. What do you say?”

Esca laughs loudly and it feels sort of good. “God. I’d love it. But…not just yet. I mean. We’re not dead in the water.”

“You were never a quitter,” Arthur says proudly. “Okay. So we save BWS. Feasible. But I can’t be known as Arthur. I’m going to dye my hair and _talk differently, yeah_?” his voice changes at the end into a flawless English accent that makes Esca’s jaw drop open with a smile. “You’re pretty good at that for someone who only lived in England for nine days.”

“Well,” Arthur shrugs as if to say he spent way more time there over the last fifteen years, and Esca rolls his eyes at himself and echoes, “Well…yeah…so what do I call you now?”

“Cal,” he says easily. Esca sucks in a sharp breath at the name of the baby that died in his arms. Arthur doesn’t look as sorry as he should. “And before you ask, yeah, Nana knows I use it. I think it was even her idea. He’s been my fail-safe—built just for this purpose. Arthur’s gone and Cal lives.”

“That’s….kind of fucked up.”

“I choose to look at it like my baby brother is taking care of me like I’m taking care of you. It’s just what brothers do.”

 _Except I dropped the ball and didn’t protect him_ …Esca thinks darkly as the memory flashes up before his eyes like a waking nightmare. His stomach turns. He takes a deep breath and pushes the past far away. Arthur is speaking nonchalantly, as if about the weather, “Did you know he’d be eighteen if he was still alive?”

“Yeah,” Esca chokes. He doesn’t really want to talk about this stuff but it has to happen. Sort of like taking a band aid off. Really fast and then never again. “Mom would’ve turned sixty-two yesterday, you know,” he says thickly. Maybe that was part of the madness from last night. This was never a good month for Esca.

“Yeah. God, she’d be beautiful with grey hair, don’t you think?” Arthur asks.

“Like Nan.”

“Yeah,” the criminal sinks in the seat, suit wrinkling. Esca runs a hand over his face. “….Dad would’ve died before I graduated high school.”

“What makes you say that?”

“The SomNoCin. His constant vegetable state. His organs would have failed in another year, maybe two.”

Arthur blinks. “I never thought of that. What sick irony. All we wanted was for him to wake up but if we’d just let him sleep….”

“We’d be talking to Cal right now, and Mom would be remarried,” Esca has the alternate version mapped out. “Might even have some half-sisters.”

The ghostly ache of _Yeah, What If_ is swift and warm, like a comfortable breeze that threatens to lift you up and away from a miserable place. Esca has always wanted sisters. Mal….He pushes thoughts of her aside as well.

“Listen,” he adopts a business-like air because suddenly it feels like a busy day and if he is really going to get all of this sappy family stuff done in one blow then the technicalities have to be dealt with post-haste. And Aquila’s lesson will eventually have to be dealt with. “I’m not entirely convinced you are going to retire. I don’t believe you would even if you could. I do believe you want to be here for me, which is—fine, it’s fine. Thanks for it. But I’m not buying this turning-over-a-new-leaf thing.”

“I really intend to, though,” he says with dead eyes. “If you’d prefer I did, I will. And more than that, I just want to. I’m….tired. You know? It’s bullshit to do it alone….”

Esca smirks. “What, you expect me to believe you haven’t been fucking around with that guy Nana’s been talking about for nearly ten years? Mr. Trust-worthy Partner?”

“Not anymore. We split ways when Cobb came around. I had to cut him loose or he would’ve made me as your brother. Couldn’t have that blaring on CNN.”

It’s more of that _I give up everything for you in the blink of an eye_ crap that Esca just isn’t buying. Mr Trust-worthy is probably laying low somewhere, waiting for Arthur to get this brotherly love stuff out of his system and return to the fast life of dreams, drugs, and sex.

Or waiting for the opportune moment to strike.

The thought has occurred to Esca that Illegals and interested parties (namely _Sealed Secrets_ ) would pay dearly to have him close up shop for good. All that would take would be one single soldier waving a white flag in order to get in close and crawl inside….

Esca knows it is a complete possibility. But he has a distant belief in the brotherly code that says back stabbing is not cool and if he has to deal with any of this alone for another day he will snap and go on a killing spree larger than Dad’s or, fuck, even Arthur’s. He can’t be alone and—Marcus cuts to mind again—dating is so not a viable option right now.

So family. A brother. It’s worth a shot.

|           |           |           |

Maids are cleaning the house, methodically erasing all signs of the legendary party that had taken place here last night. Marcus sits at his kitchen counter where he is out of everyone’s way as he eats lunch. He doesn’t feel like going to work today. He doesn’t feel like having a dream lesson today, though that hasn’t stopped him from trying over and over to contact Esca. “He’s unavailable right now,” is all his people will say whenever Marcus calls the office. He tries Esca’s cell and is ignored. He won’t leave a voice mail; they need to talk in person, and Esca will already know why Marcus is calling.

Even as he attempts to talk to the man, Marcus actually has no idea _how_ he is going to talk to Esca after last night’s disaster, what he should say, what he should do. Marcus hasn’t slept a wink, mind playing over and over again what Esca said, what he read about in old news archives. He feels like such an ass for not knowing the details of the history of his own company’s product. What a fucking moron. How can he run this company on his own if he’s so clueless like that?

Self-esteem pretty low, Marcus stares despondently into his cereal bowl, not noticing the way the cleaning ladies are shooting him worried side-long looks, some of them hurting for him like mothers, some of them wishing they could be the ones to cheer the handsome bachelor billionaire up.

When the doorbell rings, Marcus lifts out of his dark thoughts, someone kindly answering his door for him. A second later, MacCunoval enters the kitchen with his usual bodyguard close at his elbow. Marcus drops his spoon. “Esca!”

“We need to talk,” he says.

“I know--I--…come in,” Marcus says, motioning hastily to one of the barstools next to him.

“Thank you,” the shield says formally. He is in a blue suit today, looking crisp and ice cold as usual, and just as sexy as ever. He sits the silver case on the corner of the counter and Tom slinks on through the room to monitor from the furthest window.

The kitchen is silent with painful awkwardness for a minute or two before Marcus gives up letting Esca start. He pushes his plate away and reaches for Esca’s hand, but the counter is far too wide and the PASIV is in the way. “I’m sorry. Esca, Jesus, I’m _so_ sorry-“

“Stop,” Esca says at once, firmly. “It’s …don’t do that.”

Marcus swallows the rest of his sympathy. Yes, of course—stupid thing to start with, it’s like with his leg all over again. No one had seemed able to say anything but how sorry they were. He mentally kicks himself and goes for the next important thing he’s figured out. “I wish I could have chased after you. I didn’t want you to go. I wanted to--you needed someone right then but I couldn’t--this _goddamned leg_ and--“

“Stop.” This time the word is softer, but no less authoritative, and so Marcus ditches that vein as well. He gulps, feeling his breakfast on the rise. His fingers are shaking for some weird reason. This is almost how he felt in battle, for crying out loud! The thought _love is a battlefield_ , makes Marcus chortle a little to himself and the heavy atmosphere in the kitchen breaks with the sound of it.

He licks his lips and shakes his head. “Can I just say—I was an _idiot_.”

Now he has Esca’s full attention, a soft expression peeking cautiously out of that stoic scowl. Marcus feels his heart speed up with the small win, and he focuses on keeping his voice steady and casual. “Really. I wasn’t ready for that.”

Embarrassment flashes across Esca’s face and he says in that formal tone of voice again, “It was uncalled for. I shouldn’t have just said it like that—“

“No, no. You needed to say it,” Marcus assures. “I get that. I just. I wish I didn’t freeze up on you like that. You know? It just took me by surprise; _grown up_ boyfriends share secrets and—well, I guess I didn’t understand that until now. I’m--” he falters and plunges on in blunt honesty like he knows Esca likes, “I’ve always been a shallow asshole. No practice in this kind of thing.”

Esca’s eyebrows lift and he snorts lightly, gazing openly at Marcus’ face, trying to read him. Marcus tries not to fidget, suddenly shy because now everything is real. Esca wasn’t his boyfriend when he walked in the door, but it suddenly feels again as if he is. Or at least, wants to try to be again.

Marcus gives him a smile. The shield blinks, takes a deep breath, and suddenly, he _isn’t_ a boyfriend anymore, stating plainly, “Anyway, that’s not why I’m here. I came-- _we came_ \--here on business.”

Tom takes the cue to join them at the counter. “Oh,” Marcus is reeling. It’s one thing to navigate the hot and cold flashes of a man he is just interested in fucking. It’s something else to suffer the switches between boyfriend and indifferent jackass.

The bodyguard sits on the stool at the end of the bar, a referee between them now.

“First of all, it’s time for your next lesson, but there is unexpected paperwork that we need to get done first. Something has happened and I need to cover my bases.” Esca informs. Marcus tries to see the bright side—at least cold, Esca still asks for help.

“Yeah? How can I help?” Marcus asks as casually as he can. They have plenty of time to work out how to be boyfriends _and_ client/shield later.

“What I am about to tell you must never ever be repeated to another person, do I have your word on that?”

“Yeah, sure, of course.”

Esca opens an attaché and pulls out a sheet of paper, and he puts it in Marcus’ hand. “Care to give me that in writing?”

The former celebrity scans the familiar document. “A legal gag, seriously?”

Esca’s grey eyes are hard, unwavering. Snorting lightly, Marcus puts his signature on the standard gag. Tom promptly stamps it with a notary stamp, grinning at Marcus’ look of surprise. “There. Is this about the investigation?”

“It’s about my older brother. He’s a criminal, Marcus. An illegal dreamer, an extractor—he just visited me and swore he is out of it now, but like hell am I going to believe that. He’s up to something, so I need written proof that you were informed of the danger beforehand.”

“Are you going to turn him in?”

“It would kill my nana, so no. But this document shows I’ve done my job. I’ve pointed out to my client a potential risk.”

“Is he like a spy for you?”

“No actually. I know that it looks that way--I know how pretty a picture that paints, brothers working together like that, ruling the world--but that’s not the case. He was a loser, Marcus. He dropped out of high school, he joined a gang, he did drugs--for all intents and purposes to me, my older brother died with the rest of my family.”

Marcus’ throat clicks as he swallows his response. It doesn’t seem fair of Esca to condemn a series of choices that clearly came after--after that _horrible_ stuff. Marcus can understand drug habits and friends with bad influences after something like that--hell, he’d made similar choices after losing his father in a simple car crash. He keeps his lips together and waits for Esca to make his point,

“Arthur does not work for me. He never has and he never will; believe me, hiding his relation to me has always been my top priority—it’s a liability—but these days I feel like I can’t be too careful. So just sign the damn papers that say you’ve been informed and that you will say nothing to no one of what you know unless you are robbed of your secrets.”

Marcus signs the forms. Esca instantly breathes easier and pops the latches on the silver case. “Okay then. Time for the lesson. Plug in.”


	15. The Long Weekend

“Hello, hello. Long time no see, Eames.”

The forger has just made himself comfortable on a couch in an underground club where a job might just land in your lap if you look smart enough. The place is teaming with Illegals and usually Eames never comes here. Arthur always thought it was stupid to hang out in a nest of criminals, where one idiot who can’t shake a pig tail might bring the law down on all their heads. It makes perfect sense to avoid the place like the plague, but Eames has just come to the conclusion that somehow over the years, he has left too much to Arthur, because he just doesn’t have the network that Arthur has, and without him jobs don’t drop into Eames’ inbox anymore. Now, if he wants to eat without turning tricks, he’ll have to put in a little leg work.

Oh how the mighty have fallen.

He is a little embarrassed to be back here, where he first started out, begging this beautiful woman sitting across from him for work of any kind, so that he could get his name out there. She looks good. Her skin is a healthy glow and she’s finally packing on some weight so that her skeleton is not so visible. Someone or something has finally got it through her head that heroine is not a suitable payment for her help. While this pleases Eames, it also makes the little packet in his pocket totally useless now and leaves him totally without payment for her services.

She smiles in bewilderment at him and pushes her glasses further up her nose. “I thought you were dead.”

“Who told you that outrageous lie?” Eames asks through a broad, reflective smile.

“No one,” she says, looking away with a little shrug. “I only know that Arthur is working solo now. I naturally assumed….”

Eames tongues something out of his back molar and pretends to be bored as he says, “Yes, Saito’s found himself a little kept-boy, but some of us need real cash.”

“Hmm. Saito, huh? I was wondering why he would go for it.”

“Go for what?”

“Horned Chief wants an extraction from Aquila. Arthur’s going after it. I just set him up with a chemist. He has some sort of plan, needed a special tweak to the compound.”

“Are you insane? Aquila is right in the middle of his training. He’s been doing nothing but thinking about extractors day and night. Do you know what happens to extractors who go into an alerted mind? The only thing worse than fighting a fully equipped army is fighting a rookie one. Those projections are going to make a bloody _mess_ of a war zone and you sent Arthur in with an altered, untested compound-- _alone_?”

“Like I said, I thought you were dead.”

Eames forces himself to take a deep breath and pulls on his nose. “Alright, where is he?”

“Why?”

“Because I’m going to kick his ass that’s why. He knows better than to—I have to find him.” he climbs to his feet and heads for the exit. His mind races with plans. He doesn’t know where or when or how, but he is going to find Arthur and stop him from this suicidal plunge.

“Hey,” his friend calls, making him look back. She waves a napkin and Eames retraces his steps to take it. On it, she has written every detail Arthur had mentioned to her about the job. Free of charge. It is more than Eames needs. He smiles weakly at her in profound gratitude. She winks. “Good luck.”

|           |           |           |

Within the space of twenty four hours, Esca let Marcus see his deepest darkest wound, gone home, fought through the lingering trauma of all that shit from so long ago, woken up and first thing in the morning dealt with Cobb coming back, spent the whole day preparing for trial in a court room of his peers (where he will be ruthlessly accused of knowingly breaking at least three different federal laws with the consequence of losing everything he has made for himself), and then he faced Arthur again despite all expectations or vows to the contrary.

His life, now, feels like a plane crash, a pile up of train cars flipped off the tracks, a total unsalvageable disaster.

Giving Marcus his scheduled dream lesson at the end of all of that is… Well, it is what it is. It is Esca and Marcus in a dream. A world with just the two of them in it and that is, in a word, perfect. He can never have known it until it is happening, but goddammit, it is just what the doctor ordered. Esca’s sense of drowning, that lingering doom, the weight, the stress, the heartache and doubts and bullshit—gone, wiped away by the sheer _presence_ of the one guy he has been avoiding.

Marcus, to his credit, lets Esca get straight to business and they cover the lesson in record time. Esca knows what is coming when he clears his throat, looking around at the cityscape around them, ‘Well that’s—that’s all for today.”

He doesn’t just end the dream like a professional shield that has completed the lesson. Instead, he lets Marcus step near with a certain grin, a glimmer in his eye. Esca leans into Marcus’ touch, whole body thrumming with the promising heat in those green eyes. He sags into his arms, opens his mouth fully to Marcus’ and just lets it all go.

Responding to Esca’s surrender, Marcus groans, smashes their bodies together and cradles Esca’s head, dipping him nearly backwards under the force of the kiss. Adrenaline spikes through Esca’s body and his blood races downward. Breaking for air, Esca might as well have won a marathon he is breathing so hard, “Shit,” he rasps but then he instantly clamps down on his voice.

He has nearly said something pathetic, like that this is everything he ever dreamed of and more, or that he feels like he needs this or he’ll die, or like that no one has ever made him feel so…. so…. _good_.

Marcus’ smile is dazzling, and he keeps it right in kissable distance, still squeezing Esca against him. They breathe each other’s breath, “I really, really like you,” Marcus whispers. It prompts a blush and a scoff from Esca, who fails to stem his defense mechanism of sarcasm,

“Christ, Aquila, we’re not seventeen and on reality television. You don’t have to narrate every girlie feeling you have.”

With a wild spark in his eyes, Marcus--against all reason--doesn’t take it too personally, “You’re meanest when I’m winning.”

A snort breaks from his throat and Esca can’t look him in the eye, tries to pull away, “Winning? What is this a game?”

“You’re the one playing hard to get.”

“Fuck you,” Esca laughs. He _laughs_ because how does Marcus read him this well? Marcus is pulling him back in that easily; all the fight and tension has left Esca’s body. Once again they are mashed together and their mouths are melding in delicious, moist heat. The world closes in, the havoc and the heartbreak falls away and it’s just two warm bodies, and mingled breath, and simplicity.

They make out until the dream times out.

That night, Esca does something unprecedented in their short affair; he invites Marcus to stay the long weekend at his place. In five years no one has had the honor, but with Arthur around and possibly up to no good, the shield wants to keep his only client right under his nose. That’s the _official_ reason, of course. That’s the reason Tom gets when the bodyguard sweeps the place and then is gone for the night, wishing not just his boss a good night, but Marcus as well.

Esca tries not to fidget as Marcus looks around, grinning, at all his stuff. “It’s so you.”

What exactly that is supposed to mean, Esca doesn’t know. He looks around and just sees his stuff the way he likes it to be. Judging by the look on Marcus’ face, he should feel complimented. He clears his throat, “So. Um. Arthur said he’ll just show up in character as the decent brother or whatever. So. You know. Act natural.”

Marcus’ eyebrows swoop low, “Does that mean you want me to be your boyfriend in front of him or your client?”

Esca feels himself go a little pink, “Boyfriend. Christ. You’ll be here in your pajamas. I don’t need him thinking that’s the royal treatment for all my clients.”

“I _am_ all your clients,” Marcus quips. Esca scoffs, offended despite how he knows Marcus is only joking, and flips him off. Marcus pouts for him, coming nearer to kiss him sweetly, “Yeah, that was a low blow. I’m sorry.” It makes Esca grin the way Marcus kisses him a hundred little times in a row instead of one big one. “I do nothing but show you my ass, don’t I?”

At this, Esca laughs outright and agrees, “Your ass is easy to look at, though, so…”

God, Esca likes this. He likes the easiness of it. The senseless teasing. The idle banter. The playful relaxation in the soft caresses of it. He has needed this even more than he has realized. But five years is a long time and so Esca is a little out of practice living in his spaces with someone else. In just twenty minutes of Esca fussing, Marcus laughs, tugs him down to join him on the sofa, “Quit being so nervous.”

“I’m not—“

“Shh, this is a good episode,” Marcus has navigated through the hundreds of channels that Esca gets but never watches and has found a rerun of some show called _Castle_. The hot guy who isn’t a cop but works with them has Esca laughing within one minute of paying attention to dialog and when he admits, ten minutes later when the strong female lead kicks some criminal ass, that he likes this show, Marcus kisses his cheek and says, “You’re in luck. Marathon to midnight.”

Esca cuddles in closer to his boyfriend and feels like a careless kid again.

|           |           |           |

As far as extractions go this is hella easy. It is so easy, in fact, that Arthur hasn’t had to buy a moleskin for the notes of it. So easy that he will not even need to find a way to get himself, the mark, and a PASIV onto the scene.

He is Esca’s brother there to chat. BAM.

Esca has his own PASIV which will be somewhere in the apartment. BAM.

Arthur has been preparing to work a little magic to get the mark on the scene as well, but then his dopey little brother goes and does that for him, too, by inviting Marcus to stay with him for the weekend. BAM

Three days with Marcus sleeping in the same room as a PASIV, it’s like secrets served to him on a fucking platter. All it will take will be to convince Esca to let him kip on the couch for a night. God, if only every extraction was this easy. Arthur wants to call Eames just to share in this with him. It’s just the kind of thing he would love. The man would be practically bouncing on the balls of his feet as he walked. He would be grinning and chortling and getting lecherous like he always does when he’s got excess energy and no direct outlet.

True, Esca will be on the look-out for suspicious activity and will probably do all he can to stop Arthur from entering into a dream with Marcus, but Arthur isn’t against threatening Esca like he would anyone else standing in his way. Death threats will, of course, be the last resort. Arthur has vague notions that he will start soft, with noogies, wet-willies, stop-hitting-yourself, that sort of thing, and then it will be entirely up to Esca on how far it goes from there.

The one downside about the simplicity of this job: without work to consume his time Arthur ends up on the couch of his hotel suite, music playing to fill the silence, tossing his phone up and down. Up and down. Not texting Eames. Not texting Eames. Not texting Eames.

It still hurts to think about it.

The way Arthur came up to him at LAX and Eames just walked away.

The phone goes up but misses Arthur’s palm on the way down, hits the back of the couch, clatters to the tile floor with a sound that lets Arthur know it is in pieces. He sighs, but leaves it. That’s not the same phone his brother calls him on. There’s no one to call him on _that_ phone except Saito, who isn’t going to call until the end of the week.

Arthur stares at the ceiling.

His laptop, on random, starts playing Judy Collins, _Both Sides Now_ , and Arthur fishes for his cigarettes on the table by the sofa without getting up as the lyrics start.

_Rows and flows of angel hair And ice cream castles in the air And feather canyons everywhere I've looked at clouds that way But now they only block the sun They rain and snow on everyone So many things I would have done…_   
  


Arthur focuses on the nicotine buzz in his cheeks and tongue, the way the poisonous smoke seems to soothe his lungs when really he’s turning black and crispy on the insides. He recalls—a fucking _lifetime_ ago _—_ being in school and the teacher had an actual set of human lungs that she could pump air into and they expanded just like a balloon. Then she had more human lungs, gross looking, that didn’t expand as much, ruined by smoke.

He takes a long drag on the bud, and chuckles as the smoke wafts out of his lips. That kind of shock-and-awe lesson plan is meant to thwart young minds from ever smoking, but Arthur had started anyway. Just like in the Drug Free videos kids are forced to watch, someone handed one out to him and Arthur took it just because.

Of course, that was the year he started doing literally _anything_ that came to mind “just because”, things from shop lifting to tattoos and piercings to blowing shit up. _Why not_? That had been his motto. _Why not_?

He stopped cutting his hair. Stopped shaving. Stopped taking regular baths. He lived in a van. He broke things. He snorted whatever you put in front of him. He played heavy metal music so loud he couldn’t hear for an hour afterwards. He hurt people. He hurt himself. He fucked anyone anywhere anytime. No protection. Sometimes not even lube. Why not?

Sometimes Arthur still can’t believe he didn’t catch something serious. (He _did_ catch _some_ things. It had burned every time he pissed for what seemed like years). And it’s a miracle he didn’t just straight up get himself murdered… He lived in a true anarchy. There was nothing stopping him.

Then Eames showed up with this thing called a PASIV…

_Moons and Junes and Ferris wheels The dizzy dancing way you feel As ev'ry fairy tale comes real I've looked at love that way But now it's just another show You leave 'em laughing when you go **And if you care, don't let them know Don't give yourself away**_

Arthur swiftly gets up from the couch, snubbing out his bud, tripping over his shoes with long strides across the room to the laptop. He has recalled who had even introduced him to the music of Judy Collins in the first place. (The young heavy metal enthusiast had laughed cruelly at the older soldier’s tastes at first, but had grown to appreciate them. Exhibit A: today she is on his most frequently listened to playlist.)

_I've looked at love from both sides now From give and take, and still somehow It's love's illusions I recall **I really don't know love at all** —_

He slaps the computer closed, killing the music that had suddenly felt like it was coming from all those years ago, from back when Eames would look at him with shining eyes and teach him something new every day. Arthur hasn’t realized until now how long it’s been since it felt like that with Eames. In the recent past, Arthur can only ever remember criticizing Eames or just bossing him around. Maybe that is why he left.

In the sudden quiet, Arthur wishes his life could be different.

|           |           |           |

Marcus is pounding into him and Esca is biting back the more embarrassing noises, puffing out expletives and commands which always come out sounding more like pleas. He avoids eye contact. It’s such a good feeling, having a cock buried inside, stretching, pounding, making him _feel_. And Marcus himself is beginning to gleam with sweat and it’s starting, the tight pull that means Esca’s getting close when--

“AH!” it’s a sound from his lover which strikes alarm instead of pleasure as, all at once, Esca is no longer filled with Marcus’s cock because Marcus crumples to the left, clutching his back and biting back swears of pain.

“What is it--are you okay?” Esca is still quite breathless from the most glorious and as yet unfinished fuck of his life. Marcus, too, is panting though it’s from both the exertion and obvious pain. A long moment passes in semi-awkward silence because a moment ago the room had been filled with a creaky bed and wet skin-on-skin noises and loud breaths and grunts and groans of pleasure. Now it’s silent and filled with tension.

Eventually, Marcus looks up from his leg and then away, putting a forearm over his eyes, “Maybe I should go.”

Huffing like he’s kicked in the stomach, Esca asks, “Why?”

“I can’t…” Marcus begins but doesn’t seem able to finish the statement.

Esca reaches for him, a hand in the center of his chest, and he’s looking at his fingers against Marcus’ chest hair instead of his eyes, “I don’t want you to go.”

“Esca,” he sounds pained.

“You have to stay,” Esca demands giving voice to his only half wrecked body, but he also says it with a snort to undercut the tension in the way Marcus seems so on edge.

“Why?” Marcus suddenly yells, throwing his arm from his face and glaring wildly up at Esca in outrage, “I’m a man who can’t even fuck his boyfriend!” Esca is so surprised he withdraws the hand from Marcus’ chest. Marcus continues bitterly, “You saw what happened, I’m useless. My leg fucking _hurts_ and now I can’t make you come and it’s pathetic. It’s PATHETIC!”

“No, stop it,” Esca has found his voice and makes it firm, “Look, it’s alright. We’ll just find another position. One that works for both of us. It’s no big deal.”

Shaking his head and looking on the verge of tears Marcus says, “You don’t get it.”

“Marcus, stop being a--,” he catches himself before the insults fly and he looks away, “Just, please, don’t be like this. Don’t…. give up on this.” The very idea that Marcus might do just that puts a strain of urgency in Esca’s voice. He shifts closer to him, feeling the beat of his heart under his palm again, “Just--don’t. It’s fine. _It’s okay_. You’re—you’re good the way you are.” His voice skips when he finally meets Marcus’ eye. Probably he will never be able to make eye contact with this guy without feeling like he’s in over his head and about to die of potential embarrassment.

“A cripple,” Marcus scathes, eyes almost instantly darting away from Esca’s so that he only gets the briefest second to fall into them. For the first time in his life, Esca isn’t the one who looked away and for the first time, he feels cheated. He feels like he _wants_ to do that soul--gazing romantic shit.

“Yeah, a cripple,” Esca bites back, anger blossoming out of his newfound longing for the simple intimacy of meeting Marcus’ eye being denied him, “A cripple who has me here naked, open, wet and begging for it. So what’s wrong with being you right now?”

Marcus’ green eyes finally slide back to meet Esca’s, sending a thrilling flurry of nerves through him but he holds the gaze. Marcus, though, sounds sad when he speaks, “I can’t give you what you’re begging for.”

Seeing as how, in that moment, what Esca wants the most is to see Marcus’ eyes, his statement sounds so wrong it is laughable. He chuckles and moves in like Marcus’ eyes are a tractor beam pulling him in, “Yes you can, just in a different way.”

Esca sits up and straddles Marcus, minding his weight on the left leg. “Is this alright?” He eases down a little. Marcus considers and by now Esca’s skin has pricked up in a million tiny peeks because this is hands down the longest he has _ever_ held eye contact with anyone, _ever_. It starts to feel a little like a staring contest and a little like if he looks away he’ll lose something vital, something he won’t get back.

Marcus nods jerkily, “Yeah, I--I think it’s good. But when you start moving it might--“

Esca catches Marcus’ lips, “If it’s uncomfortable for you just pull up on my hip and I’ll adjust my weight until you’re alright….” Looking doubtful, Marcus nods. They still haven’t look away. Christ, green has never looked so perfect. In their new position neither moves to pick up where they left off. They just stay looking back at one another.

Esca’s next question is less about his weight being on Marcus’ weak hip and more about how he can’t break eye contact. Not yet, “…. You’re sure this o-okay?”

Marcus smiles, eyes blazing with new light that burns away his pain and humiliation and doubt. “I like it,” he says. He lets it be that simple, the gorgeous bastard. Just like that Esca’s newfound nerve snaps in half and he looks away finally, cheeks blistering. He drops his forehead onto Marcus’ collarbone and closes his eyes. His whole body feels stripped of its skin, raw and exposed.

He notices that pain has taken all of the wind right out of Marcus’ sails while he himself has only gotten down to half hard, body ringing from the extended eye contact as well as the pounding it had been getting. Esca takes Marcus in hand as he lifts his face to kiss him thoroughly. His eyes are closed but when their lips meet Esca gets the weirdest feeling that he is falling into the green of Marcus’ eyes again.

To save his pride, he tells himself the whimpering sound in the kiss does not come out of him like a piece of broken heart lighting from it’s heavy perch and drifting into the ether. It does _not_.

**|           |           |           |**

“Chris’ol, Arthur,” Eames growls when his second attempt to call the point man makes that annoying tone that means the number he is trying to reach is out of service. That means Arthur’s cell phone is either turned off or under water with Arthur’s cold, water-logged corpse.

(Eames’ mind tends to go dramatic when he can’t contact his partner.)

After a long flight back to the states, Eames has just managed to rent a car. The earliest flight he could get at his price range—minimal considering he hasn’t had steady work—took him to fucking Atlanta of all places. Usually Eames likes a good road trip across country, but now without Arthur to hog the Twizlers and excel at which ever language lesson CD they’re listening to, what’s the fun in it?

He decides to give it another couple of hours and then try again. Meanwhile, he drives west and keeps visualizing the many different ways that Mac catches Arthur trying to swipe secrets right from under his nose. It can’t end well no matter how you slice it. At least, the SDRA finally get their hands on the one guy they would kill to get. At worst, Mac takes neat and exact revenge for all those moles Arthur has killed.

Money like Mac has, they’ll never find the body.

And then there are a million other things that could happen. Maybe Arthur really is good enough to fool Mac—not out of the question, Arthur is a _genius_. But there’s that compound. He altered it. He’s trying something new _by himself_ without anyone watching his six.

He could be alive, warm and breathing, cell phone dead in his pocket, and mind as blank as that phone’s screen.

“ _Fuck_ you Saito-san,” Eames grumbles more than once as he drives. How can he ask Arthur—his lover, whom he so _charmingly_ smiles at—to do something this dangerous if he really cares? And Arthur! How can Arthur—so intelligent, so careful—accept a job like this?

It’ll take him days to get to LA. Eames has the sickening feeling that by then it will be too late. He doesn’t wait the full hour. He tries to call Arthur again.

**|           |           |           |**

Tom claps his hands loudly and rubs his palms together, excitement coursing through his body. A night off. At last. He has a list as long as his arm of things he has been meaning to do in his free time, but of course, at the moment, good old procrastination feels perfect. He walks down the street with his hands in his pockets, enjoying the listless freedom of being away from Esca MacCunoval. He loves that guy, really he does, but it just feels nice to have some Tom Time every once in a while.

Tom’s mouth quirks to one side as he thinks of the pajama party where Marcus Aquila had attempted to give him a night of fun on the clock. While thoughtful, it had been immature and had only resulted in Tom working twice as hard as he kept one eye on Esca and one on Agent Wigg.

Not that watching that woman had been at all a chore. She was not the drop dead gorgeous kind of female Tom usually salivated over—definitely not in those ridiculous plaid pajamas—but she’d certainly captured his attention. She had been professional to a T, and had that die hard conviction that a lot of cops have, but she smiled a lot, which was rare for a cop with that kind of drive. On top of everything, she had the most adorable American accent, big blue eyes, and a gracefully long neck which made up for the total lack of curves.

And she was funny.

Unable to resist it a moment longer, Tom pulls out his cell phone and finds the number he had asked for under the pretense of helping her expose the corruption in the SDRA (a pretense only because he became private security in order to _avoid_ getting himself caught up in the conspiracies of crooked cops. But she’d looked up at him with those blue eyes and had asked so sweetly…)

He dials her number and listens to it ring. She answers, whispering, “Wigg here.”

“Hi,” Tom says, feeling a freakish wave of nerves flutter through him as he realizes he doesn’t really have a plan here. “It’s Tom. Hiddleston.”

“Hi!” she sounds excited to hear from him but she is still whispering for some reason. Tom stops walking, his goofy smile slipping with concern. “Have I caught you at a bad time?”

“Um. No! No, no, no,” she insists. “I’m just, uh. Well. I’m on a stakeout. But we can talk. What’s up? Do you have leads for me?”

Tom chuckles. “Um. No, I’m afraid. I haven’t. I was just given the night off and I thought we might…catch up. Talk a little more. We had such a short time to talk at the party. Mac does that sometimes, he makes scenes, lots of dramatic exists, and unfortunately for me that means I get to say goodbye very irregularly. I just wanted to call and…yeah, just pick up where we left off, if that’s….”

“Yeah,” she says, saving him from his downward spiral of an excuse. Tom sighs and crosses his eyes with relief. The flutter in his stomach is back too and he clears his throat more than once. “Great. Marvelous. Um. Where are you staked out? Whom are you watching?”

“Actually. It’s kind of boring. I wouldn’t mind having company. Care to join me?”

“Love to!” Tom says, although a stakeout is a little close to the kind of work he’s supposed to be taking a night off from, but he ignores this. The real thing that is happening is alone time with a woman. That is all that matters. She gives him an address and he hurries to meet her, testing his breath, smoothing his hair out of his eyes, and adjusting his jacket.

He finds her in a tree on a residential street, binoculars hanging on her neck, a camera in hand. Tom had thought she’d be in a car. He knocks on the tree trunk, hooting lowly, “Whoohoo.”

“Shh. Come up!” she hisses, flapping a hand in welcome. Tom surveys the tree dubiously, wishing with all his heart it had been a car with comfortable, reclining seats. He sighs and jams his foot into the fork of the tree and hauls himself into the branches. It is not a large tree, and shakes a lot under his added weight.

“Not sure if this is a good idea, Wigg,” he huffs, leather coat scratching loudly against the bark and he carefully climbs to a spot as close to her as he can safely manage. She smiles at him. “Oh relax. Here.” She shoves the binoculars into his hands and points at the building across the street. “That window there.”

Tom puts the specs to his face and his jaw drops. “I know him!”

“You do?”

“Oh yes. He is a worm, for sure.”

“What do you know about him?”

Tom is more than happy to relate all the crooked details he knows about his old colleague. Like several in the SDRA office, his main concern is making money fast and off the books. The more Tom talks the more liberated he feels—he has never spoken of this stuff to anyone. It is just the sort of thing that makes Mac too angry to focus on anything important, and Tom has no one else in his life. Which is a seriously depressing thought.

The words just keep spilling out of Tom and he notices that his mouth is dry but he can’t really stop. He likes that he is a wellspring of information for her, the way she gives affirmative grunts and scoffs and amens because she knows exactly what kind of headache he is talking about. He likes it so much, he doesn’t mean to get intense about it, but it just sort of happens and before he knows it, he is scathing about how shitty the agency is and how the only way to protect anyone is to work for Mac.

“Wow,” she snorts lightly, and Tom glances away from the binoculars to find that she has been looking at him instead of taking pictures. At his glance, she looks away, but they are both smiling. Her branch shakes as she shifts her weight. “I just mean, I thought you sold out for money…”

Tom feels himself blushing. “Well,” he adjusts the lenses on the binoculars and readjusts them just to do something with his hands. “Save one save a million. But I wouldn’t have to be his babysitter if the badge meant anything.”

“It should mean something. That’s why we have to figure out how high this thing goes.”

“...It’s all the way up, Wigg,” Tom confesses. She blinks at him. “Can you prove that?”

“Certainly.”

|           |           |           |

“What are we going to do tomorrow?” Marcus asks once they have their breath back. Esca has cleaned up the mess from their uncoordinated reunion, and they began the hour by critiquing it, which then led to a very interesting conversation circling their first times with other people. They’ve both been laughing long enough now for their ribs to hurt and Esca can hardly draw breath, his heart pounding away from him with the feeling like a race horse let out of the gate. He hasn’t talked or laughed or played like this in ages and it feels too good. So good he doesn’t want it to end, and he fights sleep as it tries to cling to him. He would rather stay up and keep talking, keep sharing secrets from his past, secrets almost no one knows.

Before he knows it, he’s told Marcus everything. Not just about losing his virginity but about all the men: John and how that soldier-man broke his heart by falling out of love with him, and Lee and how that should have been forever but Esca was too afraid to let it be. Because Lee would have just fallen out of love with him too, eventually.

This stuff is safe to say because Marcus has already said similar things. How it felt to lose his virginity on Reality TV, how hard it was to be famous, bisexual, and eighteen at the same time, how a girl called Jenna broke his heart in college and gave him no reason not to go to war when the towers fell.

Esca knows Marcus has never shared like this before. His stories are unpolished and shy and Esca feels special for hearing them, and isn’t surprised to hear Marcus mumble that he will probably never stop loving Jenna a little, because Esca feels the same way about John. He tells Marcus about how John was the first to love him back, and was the one to tell him about the super secret military PASIV in the first place, so there isn’t really a day he doesn’t think about him.

Now, Marcus’ thick fingers are combing into Esca’s hair and it’s so comfortable and soothing that Esca is just about to fall asleep but he forces his eyes back open and answers Marcus' question, “I don’t know. What do you want to do?”

“Hm. Tom isn’t coming back around is he?”

“No.” he snorts into Marcus’ bare shoulder, “Why? I thought you liked him.”

“I do. I just like being totally alone with you.” Marcus purrs, thumb stroking his jaw. Esca trembles and bites his lip. “I gave him the weekend off for exactly that reason.”

“Good,” he whispers. After a few more snickers, he wonders aloud, “But what does a guy like Tom even do on his days off?”

“Who knows?” Esca says, woken from his encroaching slumber by Marcus moving away from him. He yawns and jokes, “Last time I gave him a day off he came back with a black eye and said a pimp did it.”

Marcus rolls out of the bed, limping to the bathroom as he snickers, “Liar.”

Esca stretches and straightens the blankets and fluffs his pillows as Marcus rummages in the bathroom and runs the tap for a second. Curious, Esca asks, “What you doing in there, babe?”

“Just taking a pain pill,” is Marcus answers as the hollow sound of an empty cup hits the sink. Esca balks.

“Christ. Why didn’t you tell me it hurts so bad?”

Marcus limps slowly back to the bed, wincing. “It’s fine.”

“But—“

Marcus pecks him on the lips the second he is close enough as he settles carefully into the bed. “Stop. It’s fine. I always take one for bed because my leg goes stiff.”

“Oh. Well… do you want me to rub it or something?” Esca asks, heart beating uncomfortably hard against his breastplate. He realizes it is legitimate worry for another human being and he just wants to do something to make it go away. He has to take care of the problem immediately.

“You don’t have to.” Marcus says politely.

“No, I will, come on. Let me. Just for a little bit.” This is so new for Esca, wanting to help someone this badly. It’s more than the noble desire to save the world John woke within him, and it’s more than the charitable feelings that Lee had stirred up. This is an honest desire to personally help a single individual just for the sake of that single individual’s happiness and comfort.

“Fine. But I’m probably going to fall asleep on you.”

Esca positions himself beside Marcus’ hip and hushes him, kneads the scared flesh carefully, smirking at the groan of relief that emits from Marcus’ sleepy face. Esca soothes him with more hushing noises and tells him to relax. “Just sleep, babe.”

Marcus hums and drops off to sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to marcus aquila for keeping us on track with this thing! You are the best motivator :)
> 
> Also, for anyone interested, here is the song that made Arthur think about Eames too much:
> 
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A7Xm30heHms&feature=kp


	16. Rebirth

** Chapter 16: Rebirth **

Marcus wakes with the smell of a warm human scalp in his nostrils, sex-rumpled hair tickling his nose. He smooths the hair out of the way, palm mapping the size and shape of Esca’s head. His eyes flutter open as if to double check that it truly is the tough-skinned shield, who once said that he never cuddled, now pressed naked up against him in the morning light. The satisfaction that the sight brings to Marcus is profound because with it comes memories of the night before.

It has not missed on Marcus that it was the first time Esca ever looked into his eyes for an extended period of time, and most especially the first time doing so as they fucked. Esca had let his walls down, he had let them down _for Marcus_ , inviting him in where few get to go, and no words can encompass the pleasure it gives him to be so honored. And it does feel like an honor. Marcus might be a former celebrity, war hero, and billionaire, but Esca is still somehow out of his league.

Esca MacCunoval is smart, fierce, a _self-made_ billionaire, and _so_ unbelievably sexy that it doesn’t seem possible. How is it _possible_? Asleep and thus wholly unguarded, Esca captures Marcus all over again. His cheek bones, his eyelashes, his lips, his ears, the shapes of his nostrils, it all goes together to make a face that Marcus honestly thinks he will never tire of looking at. Not ever.

He can’t help but to shift closer and in doing so his stiffened leg sends a blinding jolt of pain. He cries out--stems it with a grunt--but Esca’s eyes flutter open anyway.

“Morning,” Marcus says through a jaw tightened by pain.

“Are you okay?” Esca asks, sitting up.

“My leg,” Marcus admits. Without another word Esca is moving down and kneading the muscle.

Silence resumes command of the morning and Esca yawns as he works, making Marcus smile. “Sleep well?” he asks into the quiet.

“Very,” Esca murmurs, shyly glancing up to meet his eye. He looks away almost instantly but Marcus holds and waits and those grey blue eyes crawl back to his obediently and hold there. Marcus gives him a big smile.

“Last night was really, really good,” Marcus says. “Like--really.” Okay, so he isn’t the most eloquent in the morning. (Or ever). But he wants Esca to know and he likes that Esca blushes a little but scoffs and rolls his eyes.

Marcus has ideas about what they could do next now that Esca had rubbed away the cramp in his leg, but just then the buzzer of the door sounds through the apartment.

Esca stiffens, “It’s him!”

“Your brother?”

“Okay,” Esca looks panicked, “Okay, well…. Just…. Be cool.”

Marcus is left chuckling in the bed as Esca hurries to the intercom, tells his doorman to let Arthur up, and then flies into the bathroom and starts the shower. By the time Marcus pulls himself out of the bed and steps into his briefs, Esca is out of the shower and pulling jeans on commando and elbowing into a t-shirt.

|           |           |           |

Arthur smirks when the door opens and he sees that Esca has dripping hair and he has pulled his t-shirt on without completely drying the shower water from his skin first. He narrows his eyes at Arthur instantly and says too pointedly, “Cal. It’s kind of early, isn’t it?”

“This working man’s day started three hours ago,” Arthur says in a perfectly simulated British accent, pushing past Esca. “Must be nice getting to sleep the day away in silk sheets.”

“Fuck you, my sheets aren’t silk,” Esca scathes, shutting the door behind him. Just then Marcus pokes his head out of the bedroom, and his great big nice guy smile breaks across his face.

“You must be the brother I’ve been hearing about!”

“Right. And who are you, then?”

“Cal, this is Marcus Aquila. He’s the CEO and owner of Eagle Standard Pharmaceuticals. Surely nana has told you I’m seeing him.”

“She mentioned you had someone, yeah. Nice to meet you. Welcome to the family and whatnot.”

“Thanks,” Marcus preens.

Silence falls and Esca looks at Arthur who looks at Marcus, who looks at Esca and finally, Marcus claps his hands, “So, what are we going to do today?”

 

|           |           |           |

People watching. Marcus hasn’t done this in years. It was the first thing on Cal’s list of things to do in LA, and Esca is more than happy to take his deceitful brother to a public place to eat where he cannot sedate Marcus and pull him under too easily. He will certainly get an earful from Tom when the man hears about this foray without him, but Esca does not intend for anything the body guard should know about to happen.

Sitting on a sun-warmed bench, eating a corndog, Marcus stretches an arm along the back of the bench and lets Esca lean into him as they listen to Cal’s running narrative on the hordes of people who range from perfectly normal to perfectly insane flowing past on the board walk. It keeps the two tired business men chuckling, and Marcus feels relaxed for once, out here in the sun and ocean breeze instead of trapped behind a desk or shut up in a richly furnished apartment neatly sealed off from the rest of the world.

This feels like the old days, before the money and the schedules, when the real world was bigger and full of promise and he had all day to contemplate it. And he has Esca’s brother to thank for this reawakening.

Despite the warning he has had about the guy, Marcus finds it hard to believe that Cal MacCunoval is a bad guy. The way he makes Esca laugh and the way he smiles, the way his middle-class citizen outlook is a breath of fresh air, and the way he feeds seagulls even though it is not such a good idea, Cal just seems like average Joe on vacation from soul sucking work, catching up with family. Not an illegal dreamer hoping to rob Marcus’ business plans right out of his head.

Cal is kind of a smart ass, which has always been Marcus’ territory, so the pair quickly develop an unspoken war of wit, attempting to have the final word on all subjects. It has Esca in stitches most of the time, and once or twice, Marcus walks right into a few of them and has to bow to Cal’s blitzkrieg strategies.

For Arthur, he has stopped being Cal, for the most part. The adopted personae has run its course, and though he still talks with an English accent, he is being no one but Arthur. This started happening within the first five minutes of seeing Esca with his boyfriend, who had wasted no time in teasing Cal for being poor and—as Cal—Arthur had staunched the well laid habit of making the man eat his words with a dead-eyed look or a threat. Instead, as boring librarian Cal, Arthur had accepted the little dig and dealt it back good naturedly and from there….

From there, it was like Arthur had friends.

How long had it been since he just cut loose like this? Joking and laughing and not taking everything so seriously? It is hard to say exactly when, but somehow while building his long-standing reputation in the dream community as something to fear, Arthur had shut himself off from all other human beings. A heartless, emotionless robot to all. Well….except for Eames…

Dom didn’t even get free license like this. Arthur had bled that source of Esca-information dry without once offering anything real in return, always so worried about Eames learning the truth he couldn’t relax.

But here with Esca and his boyfriend who has _got_ to know the truth and is just damn good at acting, Arthur doesn’t have to interpret every sentence and action. He can just kick back and enjoy the minutes passing by and stop counting the seconds like a kick is coming. This is real and it is happening.

Laid back Arthur has risen from the dead.

|||||

“I think I’m sunburned,” Arthur says, feeling of his face. Still snickering from his joke in the elevator, Esca and Marcus spread out through the apartment, going for snacks and the soft couch to rest his leg. Esca’s voice calls from the kitchen, “I’ve got some aloe in the cabinet in the bathroom. Make yourself at home.”

The point man cuts through the bedroom (neatly cleaned by a service while they were out) and spies the PASIV left squarely on a desk beside some neatly stacked files. The sight smacks Arthur in the face— _there is a job to do_.

Suddenly in a bad mood, he finds the bathroom stupidly awesome and clean. Sickening, really; too much like a hotel. After liberally applying the aloe, Arthur rifles through drawers and cabinets just for the hell of it, to quell the burning curiosity of who Esca really is these days, beneath the fancy suit. (Part of him wants to find nothing, wants to learn he is nothing but the sour-faced Mac that he has been battling in dreams for the last ten years.) But that doesn’t happen. The little clues of humanity Arthur discovers curls his lips into a smile. It’s still his brother Esca who folds the TP into a triangle, and crushes the paper cups top-down like a soda can before throwing it in the trashcan, and rolls the toothpaste tube to get out every bit of paste…such a neat freak…

“Cal!” Esca calls.

“Coming!” Arthur shouts back.

“Bring some Cokes! Door of the fridge!”

“What, do I look like a damn butler?” he calls back in the playful manner of Cal, even as he diverts to the kitchen and rips open the stainless steel door of the appliance. His heart has started pounding, because this is his brother Esca but there is a job to do.

And this two-liter bottle of soda is making it too easy.

Why couldn’t it be cans? If it had been cans, then Arthur could have pretended it was impossible to lace the drinks right now, he would have more time joking around like this….but it is an open bottle, and he will use glasses.

His heartbeat thuds in his ears. Suddenly his mouth is dry and his stomach is starting to hurt. What is this? Fear? Actual fear? Arthur hasn't felt this in so long he almost can't identify the emotion. When he does tag it as fright, his eyebrows lower and his lips quirk gently to the side as he contemplates what could have triggered it.

When he thinks of how royally pissed and unforgiving his brother will be after the dream is over, the sick feeling in his gut is strongest. It feels better to imagine staying easy-going Cal forever, to keep Esca as a brother.

But that is just a fantasy; impossible. Saito has already paid and has set a deadline. If Arthur even tries to stay Cal and not break Esca's trust then Saito will make an example out of him.

The memory of poor dumb Nash getting himself broken and thrown off a building makes the knot in Arthur's stomach double and he falls back on the counter, bile in his throat. That is the root of his fear. He is cornered here with no way out. He can either sacrifice his chance with Esca or go and get himself killed....

"Cal?"

The word breaks into Arthur's dark spiral of panic and he whirls to look, wild eyed, at Esca. The mean CEO narrows his eyes.

"What's wrong with you?"

"I can't do this, Esc."

Esca crosses his arms. "Do what?"

"I thought I could but I just can't. I'd rather have my brother. You know?"

Slowly, a look of belief and bewilderment takes over his brother's face. There is a painfully awkward lull as both men try to get a grip on themselves amid a shit storm of emotions. Esca laughs and sounds a little like a choking cat. "You cunt."

A laugh jumps out of Arthur like a burp. "Shut up. I just....I've been going through a lot of shit lately and today it was like....don't make me fucking change my mind--Stop smirking you little--"

"I'm sorry! OK. I'm sorry...."

Another awkward silence. Arthur feels like an idiot. Life is so much simpler, cleaner, and less humiliating when he is allowed to just pull a gun on someone and walk out like a badass. But here he is, all exposed as a weakling and vulnerable to rejection and ridicule. He doesn't like it _fucking at all_.

He briefly considers turning this into a double bluff and swiping the secrets anyway--but then what would be the point? Saito wouldnt kill him...but Arthur couldn't stay the man’s kept boy forever and without Eames to run with....

Arthur's chest feels heavy and he takes a deep breath, releases it audibly. "Damn it this is bad."

"Why?"

"Because Saito doesn't take no for an answer. If I don't have secrets for him by the day after tomorrow then he is going to fuck me up and then kill me."

Letting out a low sound of deep thought, Esca moves passed Arthur to the fridge. Arthur mutely watches his brother poor the drinks he had forgotten about. He puts the tall cold glass of soda in his hand and picks up the two for himself and Marcus.

"Come on," he says, urging Arthur to follow back into the living room. He goes, sipping his Coke in hopes of quelling the ache in his stomach.

Marcus sits where they left him, leg propped on the table. He has been channel surfing, completely unaware of the moment that just happened in the kitchen. This eases Arthur greatly. He glances at Esca who smirks and winks before saying,

"Babe. You know his name isn't Cal."

Marcus tears his eyes off the screen, looks between both brothers, and then let's loose one of his charming grins. "Yeah."

"It’s Arthur," the point man says with his real accent. He extends a hand and they shake again. Marcus' curiosity peaks and he breaks. "Okay. So what's with the honesty? Oh no thanks," Marcus says of the soda Esca hands to him. "I'm no longer allowed to accept drinks that aren't sealed."

This display of steadfast beleif in BWS teachings makes Esca stick out his tongue in a truly boyish grin while Arthur is charmed into an oblivion. Damn MFA really is the whole fucking package--sex appeal, money, humor, and brains.

"We've made him see the light,” Esca says, “He's turning over a new leaf."

Arthur clicks his tongue in disagreement. "I'm committing suicide."

"He's decided not to do the job--which means he needs our help."

"To do what?"

"Disappear," Arthur says, eagerly jumping onto this plan he can see on Esca's face. Of _course_ they can help. Combined they have more money and power than Saito--than anyone in the world. This can happen. They can save him. Arthur's fingers start tingling with the sheer hope in this crazy left turn that his day has taken.

Marcus squints as he considers it. Arthur meets his eyes and isn’t shy about letting him see how much he honestly _needs_ this. The war hero looks back, stoic, for several beats before sliding his green eyes over to Esca. His lips part with an intake of breath. "For you, baby? Yes."

The point man claps his hands and whoops loudly like he has just won a million bucks--because he kind of has. This will change his life. He can be normal....for the first time ever.

The brothers launch into preparation, Arthur offering the general rules and How Tos of disappearing and starting over. All of it taught to him by Eames, whose crooked grin stays on the edges of his mind every time Arthur finds himself quoting the forger's wisdom.

Thanks to money not being an issue in the slightest, half the work is done anyway. Very quickly, they have a full plan in place with only one detail missing.

"Now all we need to do is find a safe house. A place to lie low until Saito forgets about me. And we need it fast. They will be up ass in two days when I don’t deliver."

Rubbing his eyes, Marcus shrugs like he is giving into a sinfully good bad idea. "I have a place."

Esca gives his boyfriend an inquisitive look and Marcus grins lopsided. "Calleva."

"Oh. Are you sure, baby?"

"Yeah. I want you to see it."

A sickenly sweet moment passes between them and then they open up and include Arthur again with promising smiles.

"You sure it’s secure?"

"Definitely. No one knows about it. It doesn't even technically exist because we always lied about where I grew up, you know, to maintain level of real privacy."

"You don't have to give it to us," Esca insists. Arthur is also shaking his head. "Dude, I'm not stealing your childhood home. That's--"

"You're not stealing it. I'm inviting you to live there, with me, for as long as you like."

"Seriously?"

"Yeah," he says, giving away uncertainty that humanzies him and makes Arthur finally crush on MFA like everyone else as the big guy stutters and mumbles, "I mean--y-you're family."

Arthur looses his breath, because he believes that and hasn't had family in a very long time. He mentally steps back to look at himself in this moment. He is in the middle of a billionaire's apartment--nothing really out of the ordinary there. He has made a habit of having epic back drops--but this time, he is wearing jeans and a t-shirt, and it couldn't be more perfect because this is the beginning of the rest of his life.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter has been the most difficult to iron out. I am not even kidding! The brothers reuniting....kind of the center of this entire thing. We've written this a hundred different ways (hence why it's STILL not done!!) but this is the strongest one we've got so far, and with other otp's stealing our attention, we are going to run with it while it's hot! Feels a little rushed to me, but idk. I have a feeling that I'm just too close to the project and will never be happy with anything I write for this thing that has been in my head for soooooo long. 
> 
> Anyway, if it is rushed, it's because we have really fun stuff planned for the next chapters, and we just needed to get them together again!
> 
> :)


	17. The Past Made Clearer

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TRIGGER WARNING!
> 
> mentions of extreme mental illnesses, mass murder, attempted murder, animal cruelty, and sex crimes

** Chapter 17: the past made clearer, or Arthur’s Story, or Catharsis. **

With time moving against them, they put their plan to save Arthur into action.

Esca finds himself incurably excited. He has his big brother back as if from the dead and he is on his way to see Calleva in real life. The security dreamer has not been able to forget that glimpse of homey atmosphere he had seen in his first dream with Marcus. It represents the real man. Add into the mix that Marcus is offering aid so selflessly and this feels like a major step in the relationsip. So close on the heels of last night too--it feels so good it hurts to dwell on any of it, so when Arthur mentions that he needs to clear out his hotel room and wipe away all traces of him ever being in the city, Esca eagerly tags along. Having a brother is the perfect distraction from scary stuff like the feeling of forever that Marcus gives him.

They go across town, where Esca has a startling discovery. He has never realized he thinks of his brother in the context of sleazy, dark motels until Arthur takes him to a Ritz and tells him he is on the top floor. Esca blinks at the richly furnished dwelling. “How long have you been staying here?”

Arthur bumps his shoulders up to his ears. “I don’t know, like five days. Why, you didn’t know I make this much cash?”

“I guess not. Thought you blew it all on drugs and hookers. Not nice suits and clean beds.”

“I’m nine years clean,” Arthur says, surprising Esca as they enter a suite that looks very lived in and smells like smoke. Esca is reminded of Arthur's room when they were kids. The criminal smirks as he goes straight to the mini bar and opens the last of the liqour. “If you don’t count booze and SomNoCin. My life isn’t in the crapper,” Arthur says a little defensively. “I just don’t recognize the same laws you do.”

“Are you trying to tell me you’re an anarchist? Or whatever it is that anarchists call themselves without conforming to a group?”

Arthur snorts. “Almost. I did live that way for a few years. It’s definitely a liberating existence. You can do anything. You learn a lot about yourself. I’d recommend it.”

“But?”

Arthur swirls his glass and shrugs. “But it’s not easy to bounce out of. Helps to have someone you can trust when you finally hit bottom and find that line you just can’t cross.”

Esca stares hard at his brother, attempting to read the soft, pained look in the neatly groomed man’s matured face. He can see Artie like a ghost under the years and wisdom this man beside him wears. Loads of questions tangle on Esca’s tongue and he gulps. “So—killing? Is that your line?”

Arthur coughs suddenly like he’s choked and he won’t look at Esca as he says, “Nah. You can do a lot worse to someone besides killing them.”

Esca’s skin rises in chill bumps and he doesn’t want to know what Arthur can mean. He takes the liqour and pours himself a finger length. He lets the burn clear his head, but the revelation into Artie’s past is too tempting to let lie. Esca has to know. “Who pulled you back from the line?”

Arthur blinks and looks around as if waking from a dream and laughs, shrugs it off. “Oh—he’s--Just a guy I met at the right time, right place.”

Esca grins. “Tell me about him.”

“He’s a forger, probably the best there is.”

Esca perks up. “Forgers? Do you know who I thought of when I first learned of face forging?”

“Don’t,” Arthur interjects, and Esca grins some more. “I’m just saying. I knew you’d be running with face-changers.”

The corner of Arthur’s mouth quirks sideways. “Just like you would be with a warrior like MFA….What’s it like to fuck the guy you masturbated to when you were a kid?”

“I didn’t--…” Esca immediately starts, face rushing hot.

“Yeah, sure. And you just kept those pictures of him in the bath towel cupboard for safe-keeping.”

“Jesus,” Esca curls his arms around his head, humiliated.

Laughing, Arthur slaps him a few times on the back, “No one is as stealthy as they think they are.”

For one strange moment, Esca feels normal. He looks around at the stuff that Arthur has begun to pack. He has a garment bag full of more suits like the nice one he had wore for their covert meeting in the carpark. A laptop sits open, still plugged into the wall next to a full ashtray. Dirty socks liter the carpet, along with scattered pieces of a cell phone which Esca frowns at.

Arthur's eyes slide over the simcard as Esca scoops it up, and something kind of magical happens. Arthur brings up exactly what Esca secretly wants to discuss. When they were kids playing games in the woods, Esca was sometimes shy to admit what he wanted to happen next in the story (especially when it had to do with the pretend romances) and he would often break character to change the subject. But Arthur would crack back into the story with precision, getting right to the heart of the matter. It used to make Esca feel transparent back then and it does now when, ending the silence of their packing, Arthur speaks without looking at Esca. Like men do when getting too close to the real stuff--like they did in the woods.

“He seems like a nice guy, though.” Abracadabra let's talk about our dream guys some more; it's okay.

Heart fluttering with the greatness of his boyfriend, the worst part of it all drops onto Esca like a ton of bricks and he cant run from it anymore--Not with Arthur back in his life. Esca tosses the broken phone into the open suitcase. “He knows.”

Silence follows this and Esca waits for his brother to catch up and be on the same page with him, to finally get it. But Arthur only stows the laptop with a lost kind of huff, “Knows _what_?”

Annoyed, Esca elaborates, “I told him what happened. To Dad.”

“Yeah, and?”

“Come on. I’m fucking the SomNiCin guy. How could I? It’s an insult to their memory!”

“What?” Arthur asks through an incredulous laugh, “ _How_?”

“SomNiCin destroyed us!” Esca says hotly, tangling the computer cord and tossing in among the dirty socks.

“ _Dad_ destroyed us,” Arthur corrects with equal intensity, picking up the cord to wind properly. He seems genuinely astonished, brows hitched closer together, jaw a little slack, eyes studying Esca in a new light, “Do you--do you not KNOW by now?”

Suddenly Esca feels like he’s ten years old and his big brother is telling him about vaginas for the first time or something. Some big-kid secret that everyone learns eventually. “…know what?”

“Oh, shit,” Arthur murmurs, slumping against the sofa and pressing on his eyes, “They never told you.”

“Who never told me what?”

“Nana and Papa. About Dad. And why he was dreaming in the first place.”

“Yeah, severe depression.”

“Which was just the side-effect from all the other pills he was on.”

“Other pills? What other pills? Pills for WHAT?”

“Dad was a psychopath, Esca.”

“No he wasn’t.”

“Yeah. He was. He was functioning well in society when he was younger, but he…” Arthur swallows and looks away. “He also liked to see blood. You know. Had a fetish. Blood play in sex kind of stuff, like in BDSM? Except his was worse. Kinda ended up fixated on it. Do you know what I mean?”

Esca blinks rapidly and shakes his head, laughing hollowly, “No. No. Arthur, you’ve fucked your head up putting, like, acid in your PASIV despite the warning labels they put on it because… you know, this is--“

“It’s true.”

“It’s not!” Esca says, desperately sure this is just a stupid prank, “Listen to yourself. _Mom_ married a BDSM cutter guy?” he snorts, reiterates, “Mama. Our sweet mother, Alma Sybil MacCunoval, let some guy drag a razor over her skin--No. You’re being stupid. No.”

Arthur stands up, pulling a crisp new handkerchief from the suitcase and asking with heavy sobriety,

“Don’t you remember Mom’s scars?”

“No—what…” Esca’s stomach drops, and his laughter dries up, “I mean, just her hands. Her _cooking_ scars. You know she was careless with a knife.” Even as he says it, he hears how thin it is. Arthur is wiping down all the surfaces and knobs efficiently, shooting Esca looks heavy with sadness.

“That’s just something she said, Esca-Mo,” his voice is soft. He snaps the handkerchief at the bathroom door handle like a shoeshine proud of his work.

“ _Cooking_ scars.” Esca’s voice croaks. It’s like running into doors or boxes dropping out of cabinets or the dog eating the fucking homework assignment. An excuse. Just an excuse.

Esca rubs his face, praying aloud. Arthur grunts. “Nana wanted her to leave him. But she loved him too much. She didn’t see a problem in giving him what he needed. People do blood play all the time, it’s a real thing. And, I mean, if you do it safely or whatever, then no big deal, I guess…” he shrugs, waves a hand and attempts to lighten the mood, “Not exactly the way you want to picture yourself being conceived, is it? I mean, _goddamn_. No wonder we’re queer. Right?”

Esca does not laugh and Arthur doesn’t even find the joke funny. Doesn’t know why he said it. The point man draws a deep breath, “Anyway, by the time she was pregnant with you; she decided to put a stop to it. Move on from it. Be a little more innocent, or wholesome, or whatever, with young kids in the house. Or some shit. So she said no more cutting, but then he just ended up cheating to get it out of his system with…. women who needed the cash badly enough.”

“Wait, wait, wait,” Esca is shaking his head. “No. I still can’t… _Who told you this_? Where are you getting your information? _Nana_ told you this?”

Arthur shakes his head, “Dad did.”  

Snorting, Esca laughs a half delirious sound, “Yeah, sure he did. And is he here in the room with us right now?”

Not humored, Arthur’s shoulders slump, “I talked to him, Esca. When it was happening, after you ran from the house. Before he killed himself, he told me it was all okay, because he was only dreaming and none of it was real. He told me _I_ wasn’t real and that’s why... He said he was just asleep.”

Esca scoffs, “So? He said he was asleep and only dreaming about murdering his family and you’ve just DECIDED he was doing it to GET OFF?”

“No, I didn’t just decide. _Fuck_ you.” Arthur snaps, eyebrows low, “ _Mom_ told me the details, okay? _Way_ before everything happened. I heard it from her, straight out of her lips. _Blood play_ , she said to me. First fucking time I ever heard the phrase. Didn’t even know people _did_ weird shit in bed because sex in general was still pretty weird to me. But she explained it to me and then Dad’s shrink explained it, too.”

“Shrink--you talked to dad’s therapist?”

“Mom made me. It was an evaluation.”

Esca practically shoots to his feet he sits up so quickly, voice slightly too loud once again, “WHEN?”

“Right after we came home that one time telling her how I’d killed that squirrel with my bare hands and we cooked it and ate it. Remember? We started telling her how my druid magic worked,” Arthur rolls his eyes slightly at his rampant childhood imagination, “Freaked her out that I was playing with blood. Thought I was like him.”

“Jesus Christ, why would she think that--it’s not like we were saying it made you hard! It was just a kid’s game! Like Dungeons and Dragons!”

Arthur laughs, possibly at the idea of a boy telling his mom that he was hard over anything ever. “Yeah, but, you know, his son killing animals and playing with the blood…it rattled her because apparently Dad did stuff like that when he was little, too. He tortured his dogs and skinned a cat alive once and—“

“Jesus, _shut up_!”

“I’m sorry. But he was a psychopath. Regular rules didn’t apply to him in his head. They just weren’t there. He did what he wanted to do.”

 _"Fuck_.”

“Yeah. It’s why I left,” Arthur bobs his shoulders, “you know. Knowing that stuff and then everything happening like it did… I couldn’t deal.”

Everything about Esca’s life explodes right then. Or maybe _implodes_.

All this time, Esca has hated Arthur for abandoning him. For not taking him with him when he left. They could have escaped together. Esca _would_ have gone. It always hurt that he hadn’t even been asked. He never understood _why Arthur hadn’t even asked_. When Arthur first contacted Nana after so many years of letting them think he was dead, and he told her he left “for Esca’s own good” and she _bought_ that with no questions, Esca had been furious. _How_ could it have been for his own good?

But now, for the first time, Esca gets it. Arthur couldn’t have found a way to deal with it without telling Esca the gory details. And it’s no wonder why he would want to keep that stuff from his little brother; there’s no way Esca could have handled the truth back then. He hadn’t been aware of Dad’s pre-existing issues. It would have been too much all at once.

Sort of like it is right now, but worse. He was a kid. Innocent. Freshly orphaned. Having already watched a baby brother die. Having nearly lost Arthur--running back to the house, finding Arthur with a knife in his gut, his blood mixing with mom’s and dad’s in the floor--the ambulance, the hospital, the endless questions from cops. Living in a whole new country.

It hits Esca so hard it gives him goose bumps. _Arthur_. He, too, had been young--just sixteen--and he, too, had been (fairly) innocent, and freshly orphaned. And, like Esca, he’d had to watch a baby coffin being buried between his parent’s graves. And he, too, was living in a new country. Except _he’d_ already learned about freaky fetishes and that psychopaths are real and sleeping in the room right below yours all your life and he had been nearly murdered by his own father. Arthur hadn’t had a choice but to face it, all of it, all at once.

And so he faced it alone. To protect Esca.

“Shit, _Artie_ \--” Esca throws his arms around Arthur--who freezes akwardly--and squeezes, heart hammering at the revelation that the scars on his brother’s body from the attack are nothing but daily reminders of something that technically falls under the category of child molestation, since Dad apparently stabbed Arthur to get his sexual kicks. “Artie, Jesus Christ. _Why didn’t you ever tell me_?”

“You couldn’t have handled that!” Arthur says, and he is right. “We kept it simple for you, to protect you! But I thought for sure once we were adults Nana would have eventually set you straight but… I guess not.”

“Yeah, that’s…” Esca pinches the bridge of his nose, feeling ill. “I… thank you, for finally telling me. This is…fuck, this is so _fucked up_ …”

“I still don’t get how you don’t know by _now_ …” Arthur drawls, displaying how well over it he is after fifteen years to face it. Or at least how well he can pretend. “I mean…haven’t you ever Googled dad?”

“Why the fuck would I?” Esca snaps, still reeling and over sensitive and confused, “Nothing but the headlines would show up.”

“Well… you’re wrong, if you dig deep enough, because I did and that’s how I figured out even more of the details, you know, about that hooker and stuff.”

“Wait--hooker?-- _what_?”

“I told you; he cheated on Mom. It’s how they eventually found out he needed more medication in the first place. He was charged with assault. It…happened when Mom was pregnant with you.”

Esca sobs, not aware he’d been on the verge of crying until it is happening. “What?”

“He stabbed some girl. She lived, obviously. But… anyway, they were fucking and she refused to give consent when he asked if he could use the knife, but that didn’t stop him because he was kind of crazed for it, I guess. And from there things went out of hand. People from the room next door saved her. Cops came. Insanity plea. Anyway. When he got all his pills, everything was fixed. He wasn’t dangerous anymore. But they, like, dried out his mouth and gave him cramps and…” Arthur looks over at Esca, “made him depressed.”

Closing his eyes, Esca simultaneously feels like an ass and almost suffers the heart break all over again, “So they put him on SomNiCin.”

“The miracle pill,” Arthur says, not helping Esca feel less like an ass. (All that stuff he said to Marcus about not helping people. When, really, that’s all they did.) “SomNiCin seriously is a good thing, Esca. It gave him what he wanted in dreams and nobody got hurt anymore. And, yeah, it’s highly addictive. But he wasn’t abusing it. He just… he should have been more careful, but he wasn’t. And this was before anyone really knew what they were doing and so he got lost and…the rest you know.”

Arthur takes a heavy swig, finishing the little bottle, and shakes his head, either at a loss to explain, or sensitive to the fact that Esca doesn’t want to hear more. Esca feels really sick now. All this time, he’d been convinced that a bad side-effect of the unstable dream pills had turned his father from a docile, loving scholar into a blood thirsty maniac when, really, he’d only ever been the maniac.

No. That’s not fair. He hadn’t always been a maniac, even if his brain had never been wired normally… skinning cats for play as a boy… And doing that stuff with Mom, they must have been safe and smart about it. She wouldn’t have agreed to it otherwise, say what you will about how much she loved him. And he’d had it together enough to get his doctorate in Gaelic and other ancient languages, and then to teach Arthur some of it…

Dad must have just… _eventually_ lost control. A kind of gradual break from normality. A dam springs a leak and then comes a bigger leak and then comes the flood…

Esca harrumphs as a thought occurs to him. It would have only taken a setting totem. A dream-alone version of Mallorie Cobb’s genius idea came just one decade or so too fucking late. One little setting totem, and they’d still be a family. Dad’s organs might not have failed and he might probably be asleep right now, dreaming about the warm blood of the people he loves rushing over his skin. Happy in his own way.

The younger MacCunoval is shaking. Arthur squeezes the back of his neck and then pushes Esca’s forgotten liquor into his hand. “Here.”

Esca downs it, gives his big brother a side-long glance, “So,” he shifts, trying not to slide away from him, “are you…“

“No.” Arthur answers firmly. “At least, I don’t think so.” He shuts his eyes, shakes his head as if to dislodge thoughts, “I know I did weird shit in the woods when we were playing Tribe Wars but I swear to you, Esca, I only ever slaughtered those animals to eat them, and I did it quick, you know, like a hunter is _supposed_ to. And playing with the bones and blood and guts…that was mostly after Mom told me about Dad and so I was just…I don’t know; I was trying to figure it out. The point Dad might have seen in it.”

“And?”

Arthur shrugs. “After I left, I tried to do blood play and it’s--well, it’s just not for me…” he looks over at Esca and looks rather helpless. His dark eyes dart away once or twice and then he asks. “So… do _you_ …?”

“No!” Esca cries, “Christ, I’m not even sure I was aware of blood play. Not _really_. Not until just now. I thought getting freaky meant just fruits or melted chocolate or, for extreme people hot wax and piss and stuff. Blood is just--“

“It’s a thing,” Arthur shrugs, again so casually. Like it’s old news. But, then again, to him it is.

Esca’s stomach is queasy and his head is swimming and his fingers are shaking. “I need to lie down. Do you have it all? Let's get the fuck out of here."

"I need to clean it a little more. You go ahead."

Esca nods and heads blindly for the door but Arthur's voice stops him,

“Hey, Esca? If you need to talk about any of this. I’m…you know, I’m…here.”

“Thanks.”

|           |           |

Arthur makes his way back to Esca’s apartment a few hours later, having erased himself from the suite before stopping at the bar for another drink, staring at his broken phone and thinking about calling Eames.

His brother’s reaction to face-forging has stirred nostalgia deep inside the point man. The first time Eames had shown off his little trick of changing his face in a dream had sent a shot through Arthur head-to-toe. _Ariel_ , he’d thought.

Just a silly daydream woven by an overly imaginative teenager bored with the limited high school dating pool and mildly obsessed with _The Tempest_ ; Arthur generally tried not to remember the shape-shifting imaginary friend (for lack of a better word) or the crazy shit he did in the woods pretending like magic was real. But with Esca bringing it up tonight… Arthur smiles… He has nearly forgotten why he even liked Eames in the first place…

After fixing the phone, and typing half-messages and then deleting them and dialing about six digits before changing his mind ten times Arthur finally hits the wall. He drops his phone and rubs hard at his face. Enough is enough. He can’t call Eames—won’t.

Except Esca gets to date the fantasy he masturbated to in high school and that seems to be working out so perfectly….Arthur wants that so badly he can’t go back to Esca's apartment and be a third wheel.

For the first time it slams into Arthur that he is _alone_ …

Sure, he has his brother back, but they feel like strangers, and that can only be fixed with time. Arthur pays his tab and walks out of the bar with an unachored feeling as he thinks about how both Esca and Marcus are going to let him be a brother again, and as soon as they make it to the safe house, then they will have all the time in the world to catch up and become best friends again, practical twins.

When he lets himself into the apartment, the big TV is on and Marcus is looking at an infomercial but clearly not even seeing it. He climbs clumsily to his feet, still favoring his good leg. "Hey." He says simply. But it is laced with question marks.

"Hey." Arthur returns, matching his low volume like there is a baby asleep somewhere. He takes that to mean Esca has laid down like he said he would.

"What happened?"

Arthur shrugs. "Nothing. We packed, I stayed back to clean away traces...."

"He's rattled." Marcus says with a cut-the-bullshit-tone. Arthur catches his breath, refrains from using insults to make his point. "We talked a little..."

"About what?"

"The past--look, if he wants you to know any of it he will tell you okay? Just, give him time to calm down."

The big guy sighs in resignation, nods his understanding, and mumbles a goodnight. Arthur grunts one back, goes to the kitchen for a snack, and tiptoes around until he is undressed and in his cold bed in the guest room. But sleep does not come. He stares at the ceiling and reviews his life choices until a sound from Esca’s room pulls him from his thoughts.

He is up and creeping toward the master bedroom door in seconds. Inside the dark room, he can see nothing, but hears the creak of mattress and rustle of blankets as Esca thrashes. A small sound escapes him; a whimpering cry for _mama_. It’s a moment before Arthur realizes that Esca is having a nightmare about _it_ and his mouth goes dry, his stomach boils. Oh god, this is his fault. Shouldn’t’ve told him.

Marcus’ soothing, rumbly words are indistinctive as he tries to wake his boyfriend from the nightmare.

“NO!” Esca shouts the word, and Arthur knows that the man is awake now. The thrashing stops. Marcus’ soothing voice become a little louder, “Just a bad dream, baby. Just a bad dream. You’re okay. I’m here.” Kissing sounds punctuate it along with Esca’s loud panting for air. Arthur listens to it enviously. After a few seconds, he hears Esca mumble something and get out of bed with a command for Marcus to go back to sleep.

Arthur hides around the corner and listens to his brother move toward the well-stocked bar in the living room, the clink of bottles, then the balcony door opening. Arthur is moving to follow before he really even thinks about it. Esca’s body tenses the moment the point man steps silently through the open door. Without looking back at him, Esca says, “I’ll be okay. Didn’t mean to wake anybody.”

Arthur thinks about how readily Marcus had been back there to take care of him and Esca's bizzare refusal. "You don’t have to deal alone.”

“Really? Because that’s all I’ve done since it happened.”

Arthur loses his breath all at once, audibly. Esca squeezes the bridge of his nose but makes no apologies. Arthur pulls a pack of cigarettes from his pocket. “Want one?” he asks passed the dry bud on his lip. Esca stares at the things incredulously. After a minute, Arthur smirks and puts them away, takes the unlit cigarette out of his lips to examine it. “I guess they are pretty bad for you.”

Esca runs a hand through his hair, looking out at the lights of the city. “Remember when you looked out for me?”

“Yeah. I’m trying to figure out when that stopped.”

“Wasn’t the day you abandoned me, was it?”

“I didn’t do that,” Arthur says so softly his lips don’t even move. Esca’s venom disappears and he sags against the rail of the balcony.

“I know that now...”

“Must have been about the time you starting getting better than me, started making my job difficult. Became a major shit-head.”

“Piss off. No one told you to be an Illegal dreamer. Could’ve went and got a license. Could’ve worked with me.”

“No I couldn’t’ve. Wanted to, but…” he stares off into the sparkly city and shrugs. “My life went down in flames a long time ago, Esca-mo. Got my name on all the wrong lists. There was no going back for me--I mean not without a billion dollars. I had to stay facing ahead and running forward or it was all over. I stayed in extraction ‘cause, well….not only is it just _fun_ but that way I got to work with you.”

Esca snorts. “Against me, more like.”

“Same ball-field though. That's all i ever wanted. I missed you....you have to know how important it is to me that you guys--" Arthur chokes, "I mean it. Thanks for doing this."

"Don't thank me yet. I've heard about Calleva. Its nothing like the lifestyle we have here. So be warned."

Arthur laughs, dimples gouged so hard in his cheeks he feels them against his molars. "I'm sure i've stayed in worse, trust me."

Esca chuckles, and it makes the tension in Arthur's shoulders relax to see him start to shake off the nightmare at last.

"Marcus was up when I got in. He's really worried."

"Yeah," Esca says like nothing else can be expected or wanted. "I just--need to figure out a way to tell him."

Arthur sees the darkness creeping back and reacts reflexively, just like when they were young and Arthur did all he could to keep Esca's thoughts off dad's absence. He defaults to the foolproof way to cheer his brother up, because the guy hasn't changed much from the sweet kid he used to be, a much as he likes to pretend otherwise. Smiling, Arthur brings up the thing Esca really wants to talk about.

"You know you never really answered my question. What is it like to date your old crush?"

Esca blushes and then gushes,

"It's MFA! When he's around it's like none of it really happened. He makes me feel-- ...I thought the feeling was hatred at first, because he reminded me of back then and it hurt but I've realized that...well he doesn't remind me of the bad stuff. Only the good stuff." He laughs wetly. "I don't know how, but the fucker makes me feel _whole_ again."

A moment passes where they trade happy chuckles but cannot look at each other at all. Then Esca deflects by forcing Arthur to talk about his dream guy more. "Is it the same with the forger?"

Arthur supposes that it was--he just never thought about it. Didn't know what he had until it was gone. The dejection on his face tells Esca enough and the billionaire grips Arthur's shoulder. "You can get him back."

Arthur makes a hard noise. "Dude, this isn't some story game we're making up in the woods, OK? It's real life. I made a mistake and he's gone."

"Is he dead?" Esca asks wildly.

"No," Arthur says quickly, more out of reflex than certainty. Eames wasn’t much of a fighter, and if he got into trouble by himself and didn’t run fast enough....Arthur shakes. "I hope not."

"Call him."

His hand is already closed on the phone. All it takes is a few more nudges from Esca before he does. For a crazy moment, he has no fucking idea what he is supposes to say. Hey want to be friends again?

But then someone taps gently on the door frame behind them. It is Marcus, smiling hesitantly. "Coming to bed?"

"Yeah," Esca says, moving straight into the big man’s warm embrace. They each say goodnight to Arthur, who waves distractedly as he stares at his phone.

Then, laughing a little at himself, he realizes he knows exactly what to do. He types the address of the airport they will be flying out of early tomorrow, looks out at the sparkling lights below, imagining Eames somewhere down there, and hits send.

|           |           |           |

Bright and early the following morning, Esca sorts out his end of business--easy to do since the lawyers look relieved and happy to hear that their client will be out of their way finally. They all tell him to get some R&R and not to worry about the case. The funny part is, Esca has managed to go an entire day not thinking about it. Even funnier, he is as stressed as ever thanks the the danger Arthur has put himself in—it’s like he just can’t catch a break.

According to the point man, Saito's deadline is noon, which gives them only five hours to disappear. That had seemed like plenty of time last night when making the plan, but Esca can see it on Arthur's face that they are cutting it a little too close for comfort.

Now Esca arrives at the airport and goes into the cheap little hotel to find his brother. Arthur opens the door after one knock and pulls Esca inside hastily, slamming the door and putting the chain in place. It is cramped, smelly, and cheap. Esca does not even want to sit down, would rather just get straight on a plane to anywhere.

But they cannot leave yet. First of all they are waiting on their host. It isn't as easy for Marcus to tear himself away from work. His company is a healthy beast that needs attention, not like the comatose BWS Inc. But Marcus has assured them that they will all be on his private jet before eleven o clock and his uncle will run Eagle Standard smoothly in his absence.

They are also waiting to see about the forger.

Arthur said first thing this morning as he rushed them out of the door that he made contact, like it is another reckless thing he should not have done, and now he paces the hotel room with his pistol in hand.

Esca can't believe it is a real gun, and stares in horror. Will he use if it isn't Marcus or the forger that knocks?

Arthur is no longer playing the part of Cal. He is dressed in another finely tailored suit, and stares at the world through dead eyes again like the bad ass notorious criminal. Esca has the feeling that Arthur never went to bed after Marcus pulled Esca back to bed and made love to him last night.

Minutes turn into hours, and Arthur still won't sit down. It gets to be too much for Esca--how do men live like this? Right on the edge? It is terrible. There is nothing here to distract him from all the other shit in his life and before Esca knows it, he has what feels like an ulcear burning in his gut. He curls onto one of the beds and tries to sleep so that he can dream about Marcus.

::::::

When Arthur hears a truck screech to a halt outside, he peeks through the fluttering curtains and sees Eames dart through the moderate traffic toward the hotel. He’d sent one text four hours ago with little expectation, assuming that Eames would be half a world away from the little address he’d offered as an olive branch. Good to know the forger hadn’t gone too far.

Smirking, Arthur suddenly moves about the room with energy, cleaning. Minutes later, Eames is pounding on the door. Arthur hurries to open it because Esca is still sleeping. The fact that his chance to really try is suddenly happening has Arthur’s palms a little slick. He ignores this and plays it cool.

“Hey, look who found me,” he says brightly at the familiar sight of cheap clothes and scruffy beard.

Eames pushes inside, bumping into Arthur’s shoulder to see all of the room. Arthur’s bed is neatly made, and in the other one Esca is an unidentifiable lump that the forger evidently ignores. “ _You’re alive_. Goddamn it, Arthur. Are you out of your mind?”

“For what?”

“Don’t get smart with me. You went for Aquila! With Mac fucking _right there_ in the bed, you went for it alone into a mine field. Do you have a death wish?”

“No. That’s why I didn’t do it,” Arthur smirks.

“Well thank God for that! I’ve been scared out of my mind!”

“You have?” Arthur asks before he can stop himself. Eames stops short and hitches up his trousers, blinks, and looks away. Arthur chuckles as if it doesn’t matter one way or the other how Eames feels. “Saito hired me for the job, paid me with sex, I couldn’t really split the dough.”

“Says you,” Eames says tersely, glaring at the lump in the bed. “Who’s that then?”

“My brother,” even Arthur hears the note of pride in his voice. It feels good to have a brother again.

“Right,” Eames snorts.

“No. Seriously. He’s my little brother.”

Eames stares at the lump until it shows a sign of life, the sluggish shape wriggling deeper under the pillows. The forger’s hazel eyes slide over to Arthur, sparkling with questions. “One of the mysterious siblings! Since when are you in contact with your family?”

Arthur grins. Eames’ eyes drag hungrily over the lump like it can tell him more. “What’s he doing here?”

“ _Trying_ to sleep,” comes a slurred groan from under the pillow.

“Right—sorry, mate,” Eames says instantly, but his body jerks and he narrows his eyes. “An English brother? How thick do you think I am?”

With a huff, the brother throws off the blankets to sit up. “We didn’t exactly grow up together. We just found each other. I need to fucking _sleep_. Would. You. Please. _Shut it_.”

Eames is blinking at the bed-ruffled billionaire on all the signs and commercials and CNN headlines. “Mac. Hello.”

Esca smiles tightly and lays back down with his back to them, tucks in and beats his pillow into shape. Eames turns wide eyes on Arthur in silent demand for answers. Arthur realizes he actually has his fists on his chest like he expects something scary to happen and he drops his hands. “He’s being dramatic. We _did_ grow up together, but we obviously haven’t seen each other in like fifteen years, because—“

“Because I’ve been working my ass off to be the best and you’ve been under cutting me every fucking step of the way!”

“Oh, don’t be a baby.”

“Arthur,” Eames cuts in, eyes burning with anger. He pulls on his nose. “Care to explain a little more?”

“Explain what? We’re telling you right now. Mac is my little brother. I couldn’t tell you, obviously because it’d get us all killed so—“

“So? So? Christ, Cobb knows doesn’t he? But you couldn’t tell me, could you? Didn’t trust me enough after all this time? I haven’t earned at least that must respect?”

“Eames—“

“I thought we were at least _friends_. As in a team. We have each other’s backs. _We_ _let each other in on pertinent information_!” Here he suddenly adopts an American accent and sober attitude, spot-on Arthur complete with scowl, “ _Oh, uh, hey, Eames. I’m a mother fucking spy for the SDRA. Yeah, they’re paying me shit loads of money. I can get you in on it if you want._ ” Then back to his voice with mock brightness, “Why, _yes_. Thank you, Arthur! Of course I want in on making shit loads of money simply by stabbing people in the back. You know me _so well, dearest_! Thank you for the offer, you’re a _gem_!”

“You don’t talk like that,” Arthur snorts. “You’d of said, _oh, olrigh’ let’s have a go at this, then._ ”

“You’re accent is terrible. I refuse to believe you’re from England.”

Arthur laughs, head dropping back wearily. “That’s because I’m not. I stayed here, Esca lived with Nana in England after we were orphaned, okay? That’s why he talks like you and I don’t, alright? Does that make sense to you? Can you get past that now and hear what I’m telling you? I’m not a spy. I just happen to be brothers with our biggest enemy! And anyway, fuck you. I don’t have to tell you my whole life. You haven’t even told me your first name!”

Eames is visibly bewildered by the accusation. “What? Course I have.”

“No. I would have remembered.”

“I’m sure I have. I use it all the bleeding time.”

“When? In around all the times you’re calling yourself Arthur to get a rise out of me?”

Esca laughs from his pillows and Eames bites his lip, eyes weirdly shining. “My name _is_ Arthur, Arthur. Surely we’ve established this hilarious factoid ages ago.”

Arthur, mystified into absolute silence, merely shakes his head. Eames drops his head back and closes his eyes. A weak, tired laugh escapes him as he rubs his face. Arthur, deciding to deal with the shared name thing later, smirks like they were never apart. “What?” he asks.

“I feel like a tit. All these years I’ve been bragging at having once known Mac back in the day before he was somebody and here you are _his brother_.”

Arthur allows his smirk to really set in. “Yeah. It was pretty hilarious to listen to sometimes. I always wanted to say something, you know, but I couldn’t. Not without fucking everything up for everyone.”

Eames makes a noise of understanding in the back of his throat and looks over at Esca, who has rolled over to look at them from under lowered eyebrows. Eames grins at the billionaire and motions between them. “We’ve met. Years have been good to you.”

Esca sits up, a large smile splitting his face. “Arthur Eames. Ha! I thought of you when they named me the richest man in the world.”

“Yeah?” Eames chortles, actually charmed. Esca continues, “I told them you were probably richer, if you were even still alive.”

Eames winks. Arthur might have swallowed his tongue. Not once in the ten years he’d been listening to Eames talk about his soldier-days had Arthur _actually_ believed that Eames _literally_ knew Esca during the PASIV experiements. He’d never even considered Esca knowing Eames.

A laugh jumps out of the point man. “Okay. So how well did you know each other?”

“Not very,” Esca says the same time the forger admits, “barely, really.”

“All I remember is some asshole cat-calling every time I walked into the room with John.”

“I was a total tosser back then. Complete closet case.”

“I’ve been meaning to ask: the notorious Arthur that is at the top of SDRA’s wanted list, which one of you is that? I’d’ve told them to look for two people, but that would’ve entailed me explaining that I have a criminal brother named Arthur, so…which one of you is more dangerous?”

They both point at each other. Esca laughs. Arthur answers, “You heard it. We’re both Arthur.”

“Come on, mate, you _had_ to have known,” Eames cries, unable to let it lie. “I’m the world’s worst secret keeper, how on earth have I managed to sit on something as basic as my given name without once telling you?”

“Beats me. Maybe I didn’t push for it. Couldn’t.”

“Right. Yeah. Makes sense, doesn’t it? You wouldn’t share your last name …MacCunoval. Jesus Christ.”

There is sound at the door, and a moment later, Marcus steps inside almost unrecognizable in casual wear. He smiles brightly at the new face. “Hello. You must be Eames.”

The Englishman colors faintly and manages. “MFA. Holy shit.”

Marcus’ smile is gorgeous and Arthur suspects that the celebrity loves to meet fan boys. Esca has eagerly thrown off his blankets at the sight of his boyfriend, and so Arthur motions for Eames to follow him out of the room before the forger can try flirting with the couple. “Yeah….We’ll let you talk or sleep or whatever,” Arthur says with heavy subtext. Making a scathing noise, Esca drags the blankets back over his head in shame as Marcus chuckles and winks. When Arthur shuts the door, he catches a glimpse of Marcus climbing onto the bed.

|||||

The sight of the second criminal sets Marcus’ stomach twisting. What had he been thinking? It was one thing to invite Arthur, who maybe has an unsavory past but is willing to change. But Marcus does not know this forger guy. And frankly, his first impression of Eames is of a sleazy gambler not to be trusted under any circumstances. Why exactly does he have to come?

Marcus does not get the chance to ask before Arthur smirks and offers to give Marcus and Esca some privacy. The idea of being alone with Esca is always an alluring option, and so he doesn’t fight it as the two illegal dreamers disappear within seconds of his arrival.

Esca remains on the bed, covered, pale, and entirely miserable looking. But he smiles when he sees Marcus, who is beginning to understand that Esca looks this way even when he is feeling positive stuff, like any substantial amount of emotion rocks his boat. He’s been heartless for too long to know how to handle it.

“Hey, babe,” he says, climbing onto the bed clumsily because of the brace. “Feeling better?”

“Hardly,” Esca breathes, reaching for him, kissing him soundly. Marcus kisses back, wishing he knew what the hell had Esca so topsy-turvy—if it was the good stuff wrecking him or something bad. Whatever it is, Marcus is willing to do whatever he has to make him feel better.

“Are you having second thoughts about helping Arthur?” he asks.

“No. I just can’t believe he has ever lived like this. I don’t want to think about how he lasted so long.”

“His partner….” Marcus says, letting his judging tone say the rest. Esca nods. “He’s not exactly what I expected either.”

“Yeah, I mean, Arthur’s so put together and clean. I just figured…”

Esca chortles. “I know. Me too. But Arthur needs him. I think—I mean, I’m pretty sure he only came back to me because they broke up something. Do you still want to help them both?”

Marcus thinks about it, about how he has yet to actually speak to the sleazy Mr. Eames yet and that he really should before making the kind of decision that has the power to ruin all their lives for good. He winks. “I’m going to go talk to that forger guy. If he seems like a good enough guy, like Arthur, I’m still in.”

Esca grins, kisses him one more time, and lets him get back into a more comfortable position on his feet.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, so hopefully that wasn't a deluge of information. Or if it was, hopefully it made sense.
> 
> The trouble with this story is that we have THE BACKSTORIES too figured out, and we have the urge to mention every single detail of the past. The smart thing to do would be to write the prequels. But who has time for that?
> 
> If you are interested about it, ask, and we will be happy to tell you everything we know about it!


	18. The Hideout

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I had the ending of this so tangled up and haven't looked at it in over a YEAR but the distance really helped sort it out! Yay!

When Eames hears the details of how darling Arthur has backed out on a solid deal, he just gets a headache. What is the world coming to? When clean precise Arthur makes emotional decisions instead of logical ones--decisions that will get them both killed--this has got to be a sign for the apocalypse.

  
The forger still blames Dom Cobb. Somehow, it all goes back to that wanker. If he and his silly wife hadn't ruined Mac then none of this would have happened. Arthur wouldn't have chosen Dom over Eames, and Arthur wouldn't have sacrificed everything to have a brother out of some ridiculous need that has apparently come out of the blue--again, probably Cobb's doing.

  
To Arthur’s credit, the brilliant point man has devised a good plan to disappear, made possible by the two richest assholes in the world. Leave it to Arthur to secure a foolproof escape route on the whim.

  
It makes Eames proud. And he is giddy that Arthur has asked him to tag along. It is almost like Arthur would rather not go into hiding without him. But of course, the real reason is simple and more Arthur's style. "I need you to forge everything."

  
"Payment?"

  
"Name your price. Marcus and Esca are paying."

  
It might as well be Christmas. "Bloody fantastic! Where is the hideout?"

  
When Arthur explains that, apparently, a helicopter will fly them in, Eames shakes his head.

  
"Pilots talk. We need to go in clean. We'll fly to the nearest city and drive in."

  
Arthur nods, pleased. "Let's go tell the bosses."

  
They meet Marcus in the hallway and explain how crucial it is that no one follows them. Back and forth, they trade off on who says what and the whole thing has a rhythm to it that leaves Eames feeling like he’s dancing. God, how he has missed working with Arthur.

  
As they talk, Eames does not miss the way Marcus’ stiff, neutral expression softens into one of real understanding, which means his unflattering first impression has been nullified. Eames has won over MFA, and a great part of Eames is afraid that it was not done with the typical confidence tricks, but rather an uncontrolled display of feelings for the dimpled point man on his right. Either way, it means Eames is getting soft.

  
“Okay. It’s gonna be a lot harder getting there by car. Let me give you directions…”

  
::::

  
It doesn’t look like a road, more like two strips of beaten bare earth running side-by-side through the wild grass, winding up the hill and piercing into a clutch of trees that obscure the rest of its journey. Evergreen trees, the kind that always remind Arthur of Italy--maybe because of Van Gough paintings.

  
Those trees tell him it is the right road; Marcus had mentioned them specifically.

  
Not bothering to signal, Arthur turns the wheel and roars off the highway onto the almost-road. The car isn’t modeled for mountain climbing and scraps bottom a few times on the way up the obscure lane. But Arthur presses on, not letting off the gas. With each bump that bangs through the floorboards, there is a murmur from the passenger’s seat, a hiss like the man sitting there is the one getting the shit kicked out of him, not the car.

  
“Maybe be a little more gentle, yeah?” Eames asks him.

  
“Sorry, didn’t realize you were a virgin.”

  
“Fucking hilarious, mate, but I’m being very, very serious with you. Break the axle and we’re walking. This is our only car. I haven’t seen anyone for kilometers. Where would we even steal the next one, hmmm? From the creepy Van Gough trees?” He waves a thick hand at the very same clutch of trees that Arthur had, only a moment ago, linked to the immortalized Italian painter.

 

They are the natural thing to pick on in the scenery, there being nothing else but grassy hillside and telephone cables looping from pole to pole.

  
He pushes on the breaks and brings the car to such a short stop that Eames has to catch himself on the dash. In front of them is a fork in the road.

  
One goes down, winding out of sight behind the rocks. The other seems to stay at this altitude but in the distance looks to connect with another highway which would head south, away from the tell-tale trees. Arthur takes the first, this time going slower because Eames does have a point about respecting the car; totaling it would be a colossally dickish thing to do.

  
They come upon a fence, nothing fancy. Eames inspects the latch and gets the rusted damn thing open, lets gravity pull it wide so Arthur can maneuver the car through. There is nothing around but trees and wind and birds in the distance, critters crawling through the underbrush unseen. The criminals usually hide in cities, burrow into the faceless masses and hide under enemies’ noses. Out here where roads are little more than foot trails, cell phone service is impossible, and flowers fill the air with golden dust, Eames doesn’t only feel like a red target, but his eyes are watering and it’s getting harder to breathe through his nose.

  
It’s only a ten minute drive past the gate before they come at last upon a house. People. Eames would have been happy just to see any old dusty car parked next to the dented mailbox, never mind the glorious off-road vehicle spattered in mud and well loved. Then there’s the helicopter parked fifty yards to the right on its very own landing pad. And satellite television. And a pool.  
Eames whistles lowly. “Have I mentioned how I love this man?"

  
Arthur chuckles fondly, sharing the fanboy moment. MFA is seriously cool.

  
They exit the car and take their time going through the grass to the door. It is quite lovely out here in the middle of nowhere, a physical secret. On the porch, Arthur knocks on the door. After a moment, he pounds on it.

  
::::

  
Settling into the house, Marcus feels nervous. He wants Esca to really like it. He is afraid of what the pair of high rolling criminals are going to say about it and influence Esca's impression.

  
Luckily, the fugitives don't take the jet and chopper with them, so Marcus begins to feel like it is the exclusive getaway he wishes it could be. Esca is still withdrawn from that mysterious conversation with Arthur last night, but Marcus tries not to take it personally.

  
In the brief window he has before the others invade on their privacy, Marcus milks the chance to soften Esca as hard as he can. He shows Esca around the estate, seeing it with new eyes, hoping that this tour into the real Marcus Aquila is enough to earn the same out of Esca. After that incredible night just before Arthur arrived, Marcus is hungry for more of what he'd glimpsed of Esca's heart.

  
"I know it's not much, really, compared to LA."

  
"I kind of love it," Esca says which to Marcus is damn near close to I Kind of Love You because he has put himself into this house. His heart skips a beat and he can't speak.

  
"So tell me your plans for the rest of it." Esca says, expertly keeping the conversation in that comfort zone of his. Marcus chuckles and shrugs and starts sharing his ideas.

  
::::

  
Esca follows Marcus room to room during the tour, only vaguely listening to his boyfriend’s enthusiastic recount of what progress he has made in the remodeling, and more often than not some kind of anecdote on what sort of family things ever went on in each room as Marcus grew up here. Parcheesi in the breakfast nook on Sundays, he broke his arm on the attic stairs, his dad used to smoke in the home office, etc.

  
The whole of it held a certain charm, this quaint quality, which, at another time in his life, Esca would have been ecstatic to find in his reach. But right now? Right now, it’s all a hell of a lot to take in and it’s just not okay.  
It’s NOT OKAY that Marcus’ favorite place in the whole world could so easily--SO EASILY--be the home Esca’s always wanted. How could that possibly be okay? They decided to be boyfriends on Tuesday, what right did that give Marcus to make him feel like this?

  
When he fails to return proper enthusiasm more than once, Marcus grows sheepish and the tour fizzles out right in the middle of the hallway.

  
“I freaked you out, didn’t I?”

  
Esca cuts his eyes to Marcus, the answer in his look.  
Marcus groans, “I’m sorry--Look, I… My uncle said this thing and it got me thinking and--fuck, I’m sorry. I just--“

  
“What did he say?”

  
“… That dating at our age isn’t just dating it’s... he called it being engaged to be engaged.”

  
Esca laughs.

  
“It’s dumb, I shouldn’t have listened to him, but it--you know, it got me thinking about--things. Just stuff, you know. Like the future and all the stuff I want and…” he bumped his shoulders, “So far you fit into all of that nicely. Like, perfectly, actually, and so I maybe rushed WAY ahead of myself and I--“

  
“Maybe rushed way ahead?” Esca echoes scornfully. “You think? We’ve barely been boyfriends for three days and you invite me AND my brother AND his partner to LIVE with you declaring us your family!”

  
With a defeated slump, Marcus winces, “I’m an ass.”

  
“Yeah, you are.” The pure affection in Esca’s soft tone surprises even him, and he’s grinning when Marcus lifts his eyes from the floor to meet his. The hope that blossoms across the CEO’s wide, stupidly handsome face then sparks something inside of Esca: is that hate or more fondness?

  
Ah, whatever. It all tends to be the same thing in Esca’s book anyway, hatred springing out of fondness and then fondness spawning more hatred in a nasty leap-frogging cycle which Esca can only assume is--Love.

  
With this realization, Esca colors deeply, looks away with a deep breath to break the mood and change the subject. “Well, Artie and Eames should be here soon, so…”

  
“Um, yeah. Okay. Sure.”

  
Without once looking back at the man, Esca hurries past Marcus and into the hallway toilet, securing the door behind him and slumping over the sink.

 

Fuuuuuuuuuck.

  
There is a pounding on the front door. Esca collects himself and steps out to greet his brother.

  
Arthur steps inside, followed by a rakishly good looking, clean shaven man in a suit. Marcus pulls a face of surprise. "Who the hell are you?"

  
Arthur and the stranger trade looks and chuckle.  
"I’m Arthur Eames. We met at the airport?"

  
Marcus stares. He can't believe his eyes. Eames looks like he could get lost in the crowds of Marcus’ own life. He’s in an expensive dark fabric suit with a boring tie. His hair is no longer greased down, falls roguishly across his forehead. His face is clean-shaven. He carries himself so differently that he seems to have gained in height what he lost in weight—he’s suddenly thinner, firmer. He looks like some kind of athlete enjoying being paid billions to play sport. Not the sleazy coward that Marcus had interacted with briefly before getting on the plane.

  
"Holy shit!" Marcus cries. "You clean up nice!"

  
"Thank you."

  
"So," Marcus asks as he finally shakes the man's hand (he had avoided it earlier). "You are both Arthur?"

  
With a sort of half-glance, they nod as if they get the question all the time and Marcus feels lied to. He gives the pair of conmen the once over. He has now officially met them both twice and feels like he has met four different people. "Ok. Which one is the disguise? This or the paisley?"

  
Eames winks devilishly and if Marcus were younger and still on TV then he would take this guy to the hot tub and see what happens.

  
Arthur has been examining the entrance hall and thumps the new and improved Eames on the chest. "Man, check this out!"

  
They fawn over the hand carved moldings over the doors and designer decor, whistling low and nodding. "Nice digs."

  
"Well," Marcus mumbles humbly, "the back of the house isn't finished."

  
"This is by far the best safe house we've ever had, right Eames?"

  
"Too right," the Englishman mutters, still impressed with the massive entertainment center they've stumbled upon in the game room. They moan like a couple of teenagers and give each other high fives, call dibs on controllers.

  
|||||

  
Arthur smirks at his brother and Marcus, both of whom are sitting across from Eames at the kitchen table, watching with interest as Eames forges new IDs for them. Arthur has seen the process a hundred times, and so leaves the talented Brit to his innocent audience and wanders to the back of the house.

  
It is unfinished on this side. Instead of distressed bricks and moldings around every door, there is cheap paneling and warped door frames. Arthur smirks, remembering the old house of his childhood and its unique shitiness. It wasn't there anymore of course. He burned it to the ground years ago as part of his coping method.

  
A distant pang resonates through him at the thought of a different life. What if the world hadn't ended that day? Would Arthur be slowly but surely remodeling that house, preserving the good parts, adding new bits for his children to know as home?

  
Probably not. It was a shitty house. Mom even hated it. And children? That is so far away he can’t even imagine a version of himself raising a family.

  
He goes into the bathroom, which has already been refurbished with tile but the old pewter knobs are still there in the sink and shower and drawer handles. He pulls open a few and roots through condoms and lube and grooming tools before he finds something that makes him freeze.

  
A yellow bottle, thrown in with all the toiletries that Marcus has brought. There is no label, but Arthur doesn't need one to know what it is when he pops off the top and looks at the pills inside. SomNocin. Half empty.

  
"I'll be damned," he says softly, almost amused. This is the kind of dirt Saito paid to get. A pill addiction. Arthur can call him and tell him and the hunt for his head would be canceled....

  
Pills in hand, he hurries back into the kitchen where Eames is enthusiastically explaining the hundreds of little tricks he has to replicate state licenses flawlessly.  
"I think I have something!"

  
The group looks around at him questioningly. Arthur brandishes the pills, sees the way Marcus blanches.  
"Saito wasn’t after anything specific. He said anything would do. What about a pill addiction? He'll be satisfied and the hunt will be off."

  
The all-star labors to his feet and snatches the bottle out of Arthur's hand, snapping in the meanest tone any of them has heard out of him, "What the hell? You're going through my things?"

  
"Those are yours?" Esca demands in a deadly even and icy tone. Marcus freezes, shoots Arthur a murderous look before hanging his head in shame as he faces Esca. "Yes."

  
"Shit... Sorry, Esc. I thought for sure you knew...." Arthur says awkwardly. The typical recreational use of these things generally includes sex, after all.

  
When Esca's stony expression really sets in, it is as if the room temp actually drops a few degrees. Marcus looks desperate. "I can explain."

  
"You have ten words or less."

  
Eames stops his delicate work and sits back with an enthralled expression. He loves drama. His multi colored eyes glitter in Arthur's direction so that the point man is less sorry he just thoughtlessly outed a major secret in his brother’s romance.

  
"I needed them just after the war, legitimately. But then I just...I mean everyone does it-"

  
Esca roared, releasing his rage. "Oh spare me! Mr. Innocently doing drugs!!"

  
"Come on, Ecs," Arthur starts good naturedly. "No one counts SomNocin--"

  
"You stay out of this, you've done enough!" Marcus snaps. Arthur pulls a face and Eames giggles in excitement because this is usually where Arthur kicks someone's ass. He refrains this time; plus he can't really drop kick a cripple.

 

Esca shakes his head at Marcus. “I just can’t believe you.”

 

“Baby--no--don’t go!”

  
Esca storms out of the house. With a swear, Arthur gives chase.

 

“Will you slow down? What is the big deal? It’s just dreams.”

 

“I told him about Dad and he still brought that shit with him!”

 

“So?”

 

“So, he obviously doesn't care about my feelings!”

 

“That's bullshit. If he didn't care, he wouldn't have hid them _or_ fought so hard to be heard back there. If you had just let him speak--”

 

“Whose side are you on?”

 

“He’s addicted, Esc. He had to bring them, but I think what he was trying to tell you is he is weaning himself off of them. For you.”

 

“How do you know that?”

 

“I’m good at reading people. Go ask him. See for yourself. Then maybe while you're at it, you can tell him the truth about Dad.”

 

“Why would I ever so that?”

 

“A sign of trust maybe?”

 

“Oh, so you’ve told Eames all of it?”

 

At Arthur’s guilty expression Esca’s chin sets stubbornly. “Like I'm going to take dating advice from a hot mess like you.”

 

“That’s a pot calling a kettle black, if I ever heard it.”

 

“Fuck off, Artie. I need to take a drive, clear my head.”

 

:: :: ::

 

Arthur returns to the house to find Marcus in actual tears. He looks murderously at Arthur. “Thanks a lot.”

 

“Hey, I just fought for you out there! I even told him you’re trying to quit.”

 

“Fat load of good that did. He’s driving away!”

 

“Let him cool off. He’ll be back.” Arthur opens the freezer. “Here. Eat some fucking ice cream and chill. I’m flushing the rest of the pills because you _are_ trying to quit. Cold turkey.”

 

Marcus blanches. “What? I can't do that!”

 

“Oh, you are. If you want a chance with my brother you are. Lucky for _you_ Eames in there is a master at detoxing. He didn't let me die nine years ago when I had to kick _serious_ drugs; you’re in good hands.”

 

Marcus narrows his eyes. “Thanks….”

 

Arthur puts the sundae in front of Marcus and slaps his shoulder. “Don't thank me until you’re clean.”

 

Back in the game room, Eames can't spare a glance from the TV.

  
"Calling Siato?” he asks.

  
"No. Esca would rather we didn't and he has a point. I mean, it might have worked before the deadline, but we missed it, and confirmation of speculation won't be enough to please him."

  
"Yes well you do know how to please him."

  
Arthur clenches his teeth. So Eames is still upset about that? Ignoring the dig coldly, Arthur resumes playing the game. After a few explosions on screen, Eames returns to business, setting aside his personal issue with the tycoon. "Think they will find us here?"

  
"Doubtful. Marcus did a pretty great job keeping this place isolated from his fame." He doesn't say the rest, that there is always the chance someone figures it all out and if that happens.....The forger doesn’t need him to finish the sentence. With one look, they have a plan in place. God it feels good to be back in sync.

  
Arthur looks down at his controller, recalling the day he met Eames. Most of it is a haze thanks to the toxic combination of drugs he’d been on, but he can remember three things very clearly. What it felt like to kill a guy just for the hell of it, the look of surprise on the face of the sweaty guy that had been running for his life from Arthur’s victim, and the silver case Eames wouldn’t let go of, calling it his ‘meal ticket’ and eagerly showing off what it did when he found all the SomNocin pills in Arthur’s van.

  
Damn that was a long time ago. Literally before shared-dreaming was even a thing. But ever since then, the emergency protocol has never altered. When in a pinch, Eames runs and Arthur kills.

  
:::::

  
Esca keeps it together as the jeep bounces over the rough terrain. But as soon as he reaches the smooth highway, the sobs come. He has to pull over when it becomes impossible to see the road. He lets the storm rage. It is the messiest cry he has had in awhile, but it is over quickly. He cleans away the snot with his sleeve and pulls back onto the road, headed toward the nearest civilization.

  
He rolls down the windows and drives as fast as he can, trying to let the open road run through him and take away the turmoil. Once again, it doesn’t really help. Finally, after a nice long drive, he reaches a small town barely bigger than its own post office. He finds a payphone and calls the only person he can think of who would even understand.

  
Cobb answers the phone on the second ring. “Hey, Esc! Did you get the news?”

  
“No. What happened?”

  
“Settled out of court.”  
  
Esca is just too numb to feel anything. “Really? How?”

 

Cobb explains that with Lee’s toxicology report and Cobb’s work for the SDRA, the judge made a fast decision. Eventually it starts to seep in. BWS Inc was going to be okay. His life wasn't over--

 

At least, his professional life.

 

Thoughts of Marcus packing pills for the trip makes bile fill Esca’s mouth but then Arthur’s intuition that Marcus is trying to quit feels like a spot on reading of the golden hearted CEO. Of course Marcus would try to sweep it under a rug, especially after learning about the family tragedy.

 

If he doesn't go back then it’s all over. He has to start from scratch. And what about Arthur and Eames? Will Marcus continue harbouring them if Esca never comes back?

 

With dark, muttered swears, he turns the Jeep around and goes back.

 

  
Esca finds Marcus in the kitchen. Eames has cleared away his work for the day, has the new papers clipped to a line and drying in the sunlight over the sink.  The forger himself is not there. Esca can hear the sounds of a videogame in the other room.

  
Marcus sits on a stool at the counter, his caged leg straight out, a bowl of ice cream in front of him. Not liquor. Not even coffee. A mound of vanilla with chocolate and walnuts on top, untouched and melting.  
When he looks up and sees Esca in the kitchen doorway, he goes still and blinks a few times, like he can’t be sure what is about to happen.

  
Esca swallows and forces himself forward, over to the counter. “I’m back.”

  
Marcus suddenly clamps Esca in his arms with surprising force and an involuntary choke-sob noise. Alarmed by this reaction--he’d expected Marcus to be defensive, hurt, or to start in on apologies right away--but in a husky whisper, he only says, “I thought I lost you.”

  
When all Esca does is stand in his arms, silent, Marcus lets him pull away and Esca finally finds his voice to answer, “…I’m not sure you had enough of me to lose.” Lines show up between Marcus’ eyebrows and his lips part but Esca keeps talking, explaining, “The thing is, I don’t let people have me. I don’t…”

  
He casts around at first for any other word, wanting to avoid this one, the one which has been the breaking point of so many of his past relationships. But it’s the right one and for the first time, Esca is acknowledging it.

 

“I don’t trust people.” He has to whisper it and he doesn’t look up from where Marcus’ bare feet contrast with his own shined shoes. “I haven’t in a really long time and you--I mean… you I couldn’t trust most of all--”

  
“I--“ Marcus immediately starts in. Esca silences him by lifting a hand.

  
“but even though I didn’t trust you, it still hurt that you lied!”

  
“I know. And I’m so sorry. I’m going to stop dreaming. Never again. I swear. I’ll get help.”

  
Nodding, Esca glances up into Marcus’ eyes and away again. He’s surprised Marcus isn’t trying to explain again why he started taking the pills. Probably because he knows it’ll only sound like excuses. Esca is thankful for the omission, because he thinks it would be all the coward in him would need for a reason to go and not look back.

  
His breath is shaky and the minute he leaps he’s sure he’ll break, but he can’t un-leap. “I think… I think I believe you. Or I want to, anyway.”

  
This is stupid. He should just shut up. But Marcus is sitting there, listening so patiently to all his pathetic starts and stops and stammers and self-doubts. And he’s holding onto him like he won’t let go. I thought I lost you.

  
Lost.

  
As in to imply some kind of great value.

  
Licking his lips, Esca tries for some honesty. “I’m staying because…” a sudden rush in his chest demands a deep breath and with the increase in oxygen comes a dizzy swarm of heat behind his eyes which sting tight in the corners. His voice is much thinner, “I don’t want to just toss you out over this. I want to help you beat it. I don’t want to--to--“

  
“To give up on me?” Marcus asks.

  
Nodding, the breath Esca expels is sickeningly wet sounding and he reflexively sniffs, which comes out as an undeniable crying sound. Fuck!

  
And just like that he’s talking fast, like he might be able to get it all said before he loses it and starts really making a pathetic ass of himself. But talking faster is only making it all well up behind his facade faster, thickening his voice, yet he can’t stop once he starts.  “I want us to--I mean--I think I can--with you--I can…”

  
“Try?” Marcus finishes for him, softly and oh so hopefully.

  
“Yes.” The word breaks out in a sob.

  
“Make it something good?”

  
“Yes,” and this one is just as wet as the first and Esca hasn’t cried in front of anyone since he was fourteen. Tears are literally on his face now and a part of him is horrified. This. Has. Got. To. Stop. Yet another part of him is so tired of being the tough guy who goes to sleep alone, and it likes that Marcus’s hands are gently squeezing his arms and pulling him in just a little bit, but not all the way, letting him come the rest of the way on his own. Esca stops when he’s close enough to breathe the same air as the other man.

  
“Esca,” Marcus whispers, a plea so low he practically only mouths it.

  
Still, Esca doesn’t move in because that other part of him, the horrified part, is reminding him that Marcus isn’t out of the dog house yet. He lied. He’s an addict. He’s saying this stuff now… but what about later? What happens when he needs a fix?

  
Marcus’ thumb wipes at a tear track low on his jaw, “I have to earn your trust. I get that. And I will.” He nods once, like a soldier with orders, and his voice is firm, a solid thing that only serves to remind Esca how pathetically weak his own voice has sounded so far. “I’ll earn it. I’ll do whatever it takes.”

  
Esca is nodding automatically. Right now there’s nothing he can do but nod, agree. Wait and see.

  
But next when Marcus speaks, his voice has lost most of that bravado and rings sincere. “I want us to try, too.”  
“Yeah?” For whatever reason, Marcus’ confession comes as such a comfort to Esca that his eyes sting and drip anew.

  
“Esca, baby, yeah,” Marcus surges in and kisses him, his whole mouth but short and sweet, “you’re so great. I can’t believe I’ve been so stupid. I’m going to do better.”  
Of course he’ll say that. He just got caught. What else is he going say in this situation?

  
“You don’t have to believe me right now,” Marcus says, sounding hurt but understanding, and once again reading Esca so easily. “I’m going to show you, baby. Time, just give me time and I’ll prove it to you. I’ll be whatever you need. I want to be.”

  
At this point, Esca would just like time to hurry up and happen so that he’ll know already. Know if this is the stupidest thing he’s ever done, or the smartest. He drops his head on Marcus’ shoulder, ready for the reassurances to stop before they start sounding empty.  
He’s ready to just give in and let this, whatever this is, burn him up, good or bad. Because fighting it is more than he’s able to do anymore. He puts his arms around Marcus and presses a kiss to his neck. “Okay.”

  
“Okay?” Marcus asks with a somewhat delirious laugh. Esca finds he shares in the delirium. Like Marcus, he’d expected there to be a lot more begging, a lot more proving, before the holding and kissing and sex started. But here he is, half-hard and sick of talking.

  
“Yeah,” he assures and straddles Marcus’ good leg for a long, deep kiss.

  
|    |    |    |

  
When the talking stops and deep sighs and grunts start, Arthur lifts up from where he’d slumped on the wall outside the kitchen door and goes quietly into the game room. There is a weird ringing feeling in his chest. That scene belongs in a movie not happening to real people. Arthur checks his totem. Real.

  
But it doesn't feel real. Arthur feels like the world is empty, like a dreamscape only made to appear busy with life. Just a sham. His life is a shame. No real value. Nothing to lose.

  
He reflexively stows the rocketing emotions, has his exterior perfectly cool by the time he rounds the corner. Eames’ lips stretch wide, eyes alight, with his greeting. The gaming system is still paused from when Arthur heard his brother return.

 

“Get them sorted?”

  
“Yeah,” Arthur says and rolls his eyes. “They’re so gay.”  
Eames holds his head back and laughs. “Become a couple of lovebirds right in front of you, did they?”

  
Arthur laughs, nodding. “But when we were kids playing Tribe Wars, he always had these long romantic speeches for his love interests and then they always had a speech, too. He was just,” Arthur laughs fondly, shrugging a shoulder, “a real dork about it. I was cooler. You know, less obvious.” Snickering at himself, he teases, “I played hard to get with my imaginary boyfriends.”

  
Silence follows this--what Arthur only now realizes is a rather long, and revealing speech about his childhood. He has never spoken like this, of his youth, his brother, or himself. Eames just sort of blinks at him a moment and then laughs softly at him, and moves right along. “Saito is dangerous and this place is cozy. I say we hide for a year at least.”

  
Arthur smirks. “I’m pretty sure we can’t outstay his hospitality—not so long as they are dating anyway.”

  
“Good job nearly breaking them up on our first day here, then.”

  
“Fuck off. Esca blew that way out of proportion.” Arthur says, reclining to sit deep in the cushions like Eames.

  
“Now,” Eames says as they resume the video game, “I’m not sure I’ve actually ever heard a grown man use the phrase, my imaginary boyfriends. Care to say it for me one more time?”

  
Arthur uses a grenade on Eames’ avatar, laughing, embarrassed. Why had he said THAT of all things he could have confessed? “Fuck you.”

  
“Well, me, or your imaginary boyfriends. Frankly, I’d like to see the second option, if you’d please.”

  
“Eames,” Arthur drops his head as his avatar dies brutally, tired but so fucking relieved to be back here. Where Eames teases him mercilessly like there is no one else he’d rather be bothering.

  
|||||||

  
“You are rubbish, darling!” Eames says later, laughing when Arthur dies yet again in the video game. Arthur laughs, embarrassed.

  
“If I didn’t know any better I’d think you were never a normal kid with a Nintendo.”

  
“Fuck you, Mr. Eames. I played outside as a kid.”

  
“Oh really?”

  
“Yeah. Hiking, camping, tree forts, the works.”

  
“I still have my old tree fort out back.” Marcus says, from where he is tucked under blankets, detoxing.

  
“Oh yeah?” Arthur asks, with genuine interest. He looks out of the dark windows. “Can we go see it?”

  
“Sure, in the morning.”

  
“Nah, now’s fine.”

  
“It’s midnight, darling.”

  
“Moon’s out,” Arthur says with a shrug, heading towards the door. “You guys aren’t afwaid of the dark are you? Me and Esc used to play out in the dark all the time. Come on, guys. It’ll be cool. The stars are out.”

  
“No thanks, darling. I am so close to winning this level.”

  
“I’m gonna help Big Arthur.”

  
“Oh, I like that! Can I call myself that from now on, Arthur?”

  
“Sure.” The point man says on his way out of the door.

The door slides closed behind him, sealing him off from the light and sound of the group. With his back to the windows, he just listens for a minute to the deafening cacophony of insects and night animals in the trees and grass. He breathes deep the fresh air. Something under his skin lifts and stretches like a comatose patient getting out of bed for the first time in years.

  
He walks down the old wooden steps and across neatly trimmed grass to the edge of the yard, where the over grown grass of a field marks the border between civilization and the great wilderness. Idly, he stands with one foot on each side, and hangs his head back to look at the moon.

  
“Hey,” Esca says out of the darkness. Arthur startles slightly and turns to smile at his brother. He looks to be wearing Aquila’s sweat shirt; it hangs off him like a circus tent, making him look just like the kid Arthur left with Nana all those years ago.

  
“Just admiring the set up out here…” Arthur says. He smirks, shaking his head, “Man, can you imagine growing up here? All these woods and fields to play in…”

  
“Yeah. Wouldn’t have had to use the same place for the tribe-lands and central Rome.”

  
“Could have even had real horses.”

  
Esca laughs brightly. “Never considered owning a horse before...Yeah, that would have been something else.”

Arthur glances back at the house. “Rich kids never appreciate what they have. Bet he spent all his time playing that game or watching TV.”

  
“Like a normal kid.”

  
Arthur smirks. “Normal is overrated. We had our fun, didn’t we?”

  
“Yes.”

  
“I just want to get back to that somehow. To who I was going to be before everything blew up.”

  
“You’ve got a great start so far…they won’t actually ever catch you will they?”

  
Arthur gives him a sideways look full of cockiness. “Nah. You kiddin’?” he gestures back towards the house. “Come on, let’s go back in. I’m beat, going to bed.”

  
They are on the porch before Arthur even looks through the door. What he sees gives him a bit of an electric shock. Eames—body language at Max Seduction—leaning toward Marcus. They aren’t even holding game controllers anymore. He loses a soft swear word, which alerts Esca to what is going on just as he slides open the door.

  
“Marcus?” he asks loudly. Eames jumps away from him. Arthur gives him a tired look. “Dude, seriously? He’s out of his mind. Are you really that desperate to fuck MFA that you’d take advantage of him?”

  
Eames shrugs in a casual way that means he is not at all casual. “Worth a shot.”

  
“Unbelievable,” Esca scathes.

  
“You know what, Esc, I’ll stay up with him during Eames’ watch. Keep an eye on him.”

  
“Hey, you make it sound like I’ll cheat on Esca the first chance I get!”

  
“No offense, but Eames can be extremely persuasive when he wants to be.” Arthur’s tone falls flat. He can't help but remember his own hellish detox and how Eames had been a rock, with zero funny business. He has just sort of been assuming Eames has line there, but evidently not.

Eames looks guilty at Arthur’s sullen tone and the Brit pulls at his nose. “Moment of weakness. Won’t happen again.”

Esca makes a disbelieving noise.

  
|    |    |    |    |    |    |

 

At the stroke of 3 AM, Marcus rubs hard at his sleepless eyes. His mind will not settle. Thoughts and fantasies whirl through his head like a tornado of broken glass dream fragments. Whenever he formulates a half-decent scenario between himself and Esca that hits the spot between sweet and sexy, he can’t help but itch for a pill. He just knows how shiny and perfect the dream world will be if he can just let his Sleeping mind stack the pieces into a proper paradise.

 _Nothing is as good as the real Esca_ , he reminds himself. 

Then, almost like a phantom of his own imagination, Esca comes into the room. He is in soft pajamas and bed hair. Arthur stirs from his deep, pensive stare into the abyss and sighs. “Your turn already?”

“Get some sleep, Artie,” Esca begs him.

Marcus sits the lazy boy upright and tries not to grin too eagerly at his boyfriend. Today has been an emotional hurricane and there really isn’t any telling if this is the end of it or just the calm eye of the storm. Right away he doesn’t like the stressed look on Esca’s face. He has come down here to say something important.

 _Shit,_ Marcus thinks desperately. Esca has had time to contemplate his choice to forgive him and has changed his mind. It makes Marcus’ throat close. He can’t breathe.

“How do you feel?” Esca asks, so softly that Marcus wouldn’t have caught the question if not for the accompanying gesture. Esca touches his face with caring hands, as if checking for fever.

Marcus’ throat opens with an audible click. “Okay, I guess. Just wish I could sleep.”

“I can’t either,” Esca says, sliding into his lap. Marcus holds him close, marveling at the paradox of soft and strong, the intoxicating smell that envelops him. Instantly, he feels better. No way could his dreaming mind have drummed this up on its own. Real Esca.

“We need to talk about SomNiCin.”

Something stabs Marcus in the chest from the inside. Guilt, with a sharp edge of fear. “Okay.”

Soft fingers trace his ears, sending a shiver down his tensed spine. Marcus feels kind of dizzy from flipping between so many emotions. “I’m so sorry I brought those things. I know how you feel about them--”

“That’s just it,” Esca cuts in, curling his fingers into his hair as a silent plea to stop talking. Wetting his lips, he continues without eye contact. “I was wrong. The pills didn’t drive my father crazy.”

“No?”

“I thought they did. My grandmother fucking told me they did. But that was a lie. Arthur set me straight, that night at the hotel. I just--I needed time to get my head around it all before I told you and then Arthur found your pills, and,” he screws his eyes shut, face still pinched with stress. Marcus gives him an instinctual squeeze at the sour memory of him storming out of the house with no intention of coming back.

When Esca speaks again, his voice is shaky, “My father was apparently insane before he was prescribed the miracle pill. In fact, SomNiCin helped us be a family longer than we would have without it.”

Marcus lifts his eyebrows. “So that’s why you've been so quiet? That’s why you forgave me for my addiction?”

“I was wrong.”

Marcus kisses him deeply. They settle deeper into the lazy boy, which Marcus sets to a gentle, soothing rock. No way is he sleeping tonight, but if Esca will let him, he’ll rock the man to sleep in his arms. It is so comfortable. So right. If Marcus is going to ever have another addiction, it’ll be quiet downtime with Esca like this. Just the two of them.

But as the clock ticks on, Marcus’ disorganized mind shuffles again through the countless fragments of potential dreams with no ability to hold any of it together into a real shape. He feels a little sea sick actually and has to stop rocking.

“You were wrong about your dad but not the pill.” Marcus admits into the sudden stillness. “Our brand has had a messy history. You had every right to think your dad was a victim. I mean, how does Arthur know for certain?”

That’s when Esca relates all the gruesome facts in a soft, strained voice. Marcus knows the general details from headlines, but to get the personal account is something one hundred times worse. He swallows bile and tries to squeeze the life out of Esca. “I’m so sorry that happened to you baby.”

“It feels good to tell someone, like expelling poison.” Esca admits with something like a smile. He curls in closer to Marcus’ heart and sighs with comfort. Then like a valve is opened, Esca keeps talking until Marcus has heard all the swirling emotions and memories that are keeping Esca up tonight. Like that his company is off the chopping block and needs his full attention to get back to it proper place in the whole world's mind, but he doesn't want to leave Calleva. Some things are more important than work. Or how Esca feels bad for hating Arthur all these years when he had only left to protect Esca.

Marcus loves this talk for countless reasons. Not only does it just give him more of the tough CEO than he’s ever had before, but the weight of these problems are enough to settle in Marcus’ head like paperweights holding down the flurry of loose paper thoughts whipping around in there.

“Arthur knew what was going on before it even happened. I mean, I knew something was wrong, but I was too young to get it. I can remember asking Arthur about it once. We were camping, playing our silly games, and I asked him what he thought our dad dreamed about all the time....”

 

| | | | | |

 

Esca stops talking because the air is knocked right out of his lungs. Impossible love. The magic spell. The centurian. Ariel. Thirteen year old Esca had felt something very real happen that night, and now, grown Esca knows for a fact his brother had indeed evoked higher powers to intervene.

There is no other explanation.

How _else_ could Esca have fantasized about a brave, strong warrior (with Marcus F. Aquila’s face!!) and then end up with none other than the _war veteran Marcus F. Aquila himself?_ How _else_ would Arthur have visualized his soulmate as a hundred different people only to find himself partnered with a slippery thief who makes a living by putting on a hundred faces in dreamscape? The universe actually sent them!

Chills spread all over Esca’s body. There is a God. Or at least natural powers that can push or pull individuals together if asked nicely.

“Esca?” Marcus asks, sensing his emotional upheaval. Soft lips glance off his cheekbone. “What are you thinking about?” 

Esca is thinking about the look on Arthur’s face when they saw Eames in here attempting to seduce the detox patient. “I think we need to slow down,” he says, adding fast to sooth the look of panic that flashes in green eyes, “I can’t mess any of this up. It’s too important. I just got my brother back, Marcus, and he is in trouble. He needs me. More than I think he even knows. I think….I think he’s been alone this whole time. Ever since he left me. And I can’t go off into the sunset with you until I know he is going to be okay. Okay?”

Green eyes search his face. Big slender hands hold him tightly. Finally, Marcus nods. “I think I get it.”

Esca palms his face. “It’s not just about me anymore.”

“Family. I get it. Really. But, I mean, he isn’t that alone? He has Big Arthur.”

“Please,” Esca snorts, “they are trapped in some kind of weird will-they-won’t-they and it’s getting a little pathetic to watch. I think we should turn this hideout into a match-making opportunity.” 

Now Marcus really smiles. “That sounds like fun.”

| | | | |

 

“How is the patient doing?” Eames asks, motherly as ever, the following morning.

Arthur feels the stirring of jealousy to see the forger puttering around Marcus instead of him. Marcus, a little pale and beginning to sweat, just smiles. “Better today.”

“He hasn’t asked for a dream at all today,” Arthur announces. He has been on watch since before dawn, when a yawning Esca traded shifts with him one more time. The couple had clearly spent the time being sickeningly sweet to one another because Marcus has had a doofy grin on his face since then. He has also been unusually chatty--asking Arthur about his thoughts on love and all that soft stuff. Forcing him, without ever actually saying Eames' name, to think about the forger and what the pasely-loving asshole has come to mean to Arthur.

For the most part, Arthur has just teased Marcus without ever showing his hand on the matter. Which is that love sucks beyond all reason, the end. Seriously, if Arthur can choose, he'd opt for a just-friends kind of affection for the Brit. Hell even mortal enemy. _Anything_ would be better than this pathetic need to have him and hold him and all of that shit.

  
Esca brightens at Arthur’s report that Marcus has made it through the first stage of with-drawl. “I’m so proud of you, baby,” Esca says, draping himself around Marcus from behind the chair. Marcus grins. “I couldn’t do it without you.”

  
Esca purrs humbly. Marcus noses his ear and whispers something that might be, “Who needs dreams when I got you?”

  
It is literally too sweet to look at because it is everything he has always denied wanting. Arthur puts his back to it and goes out onto the deck. A moment later, Eames follows him, sneezing in the dusty air. “Christ, I hate the country.”

  
“Really?” Arthur asks, truly disappointed to hear it, and hoping a change of heart can happen. “I used to only come inside every couple of days. Freaking lived in the woods.”

  
Eames makes a noise to show his refusal to believe posh Arthur ever lived in the dirty wild. Arthur dimples at him, “I used to be obsessed with ancient British history, and wished I lived back then. I even learned Gaelic—“

  
“Okay, cut it out, Arthur,” Eames says suddenly. His tone makes Arthur retroactively understand his previous noise as a warning sound to cut the bullshit. He literally almost swallows his tongue he is so surprised to be shot down. The young man’s eyes blink independently and he grunts, “What? I was just…”

  
“You were just…this isn’t you, Arthur. It’s beginning to scare me. You’re totally different. It’s like I don’t know you anymore!”

  
“Well, I’m trying to fix that, aren’t I?” Arthur snaps. “I was just trying…fuck this.”

  
He leaves the house, thundering down the deck steps. Eames considers giving him space, but then shakes his head and charges after him. “Arthur," he calls, screen door slamming behind him, "We’re talking about this.”

  
“Just forget it.” Arthur says, disappearing into the woods.

Eames grumbles and starts to pick his way carefully into the underbrush. He is not in the proper shoes for nature walks. He finds Arthur testing the ladder of a large tree house.

  
“Can’t,” Eames says. “You want to fix this, fix it. Are you or aren’t you the man I’ve had with me for ten years?”

  
“I am,” Arthur promises, choked. “I just wanna…”

  
Eames blinks, alarmed when the young man turns to lean on the weathered boards, vulnerably shrugging one shoulder. “You know? I just wanna….don’t you?”

  
Eames stops breathing, shocked that this is happening. Is he talking about what Eames thinks he’s talking about?

  
Arthur’s thin shoulders sag. “Why don’t we ever….’s like you never see me lately. Am I too old now or something?"

  
"The hell is that supposed to mean?"

  
“You never date people your own age.”

  
“That’s rich coming from someone’s been sleeping with a tycoon twice his age.”

  
“So I can’t fuck older men but you get to wreck every teenager you get into bed? I mean--Why not me? Why do you fuck every kid you come across but you never ever touched me? What was wrong with me?”

  
Silence follows this question. Eames paces away, rubbing his beard and muttering to himself and shaking his head. Arthur forces himself to hold his ground. He isn’t going to run from this like a coward, no matter how mortifying it is becoming by the second. It’s just time to air out this shit and move on for good, if he has to.

  
After pacing away through the leaves and back, scrubbing his beard and staring hard at the ground, Eames slides his feet to a stop in front of Arthur and heaves in a breath. Arthur braces for rejection, but then, Eames is leaning. The point man barely has time to draw a breath of wonder before Eames has pushed him against the tree house ladder with a deep, exploring kiss.

  
He tastes like toothpaste of all things. Arthur huffs and tries frantically to recall what he has eaten today. An energy drink and that stale donut, so nothing too horrible. He relaxes into the warm wet caress as Eames’ tongue licks and twists into his mouth, tickly and delicious.

  
They come up for air and Arthur gasps, shuddering slightly. “Wow—shit.”

  
Panting through his nose, Eames runs his thumbs over both Arthur’s ears, eyes burning into him, and then lets go of his head. “There you git. That’s why.”

  
“I don’t…” Arthur shakes his head, lost. Eames huffs, shoulders sagging.

  
“Arthur. Christ. I don’t know how else to say it. I…”

  
“So you…?”

  
The Brit’s eye ticks but he grins and nods and looks away to admit, “Just saving the best for last, or something or other. It isn’t a plan or-or anything… Never planned you.”

  
Gulping and trembling now, Arthur lets him off the hook with a curt nod. “Okay.”

  
Eames nods back just as curtly and then there is an awkward pause in which both wonder how to proceed. Then Eames smirks, winks, and says goodnight. Arthur is left alone in the woods, heart racing. He checks his totem because that kiss in this setting---the comfort of trees and fresh air and a kid’s play house—this is all too much like a dream catered to their exact needs.

  
But the totem proves it just happened. Arthur can’t stop smiling.

 


	19. The End

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: mentions of suicide

**Chapter 19: The End**

Through the quietest part of night, while Arthur and Esca trade off shifts to sit with the addict, Eames tosses and turns in his bed.

He has thought about kissing Arthur countless times. Dreamed it all down to the last detail to get himself through those lonely Christmases when Arthur disappeared for a few days every year. There is still a ringing inside of Eames from that moment beneath the tree house. That _kiss._

Real life has stood up to expectation; blew his bloody socks off. But what haunts him for the rest of the day is the little heartbroken question _Am I just too old for you now or something?_

Leave it to Arthur to gut a man with as few words as possible.

The thing is--Eames doesn’t have a predilection for teenagers. Not really. He guides the occasional young person through the act, whenever he is lucky enough to meet someone coming of age. Virginity is sexy as hell--but only on an adult.

Arthur should know that. It kills Eames that he had to ask that--those brown eyes ripe with sincerity. Eames can die of mortification.

The whole bloody thing is meant to be a joke. It started as one, ages ago. A flirty banter. A tease to make pretty dimpled Arthur blush.

Eames is trying to remember when it solidified into a real problem.

The thing is, precise, calculating Arthur has a weakness and that’s guessing ages. He always goes young. Probably because he had to grow up at sixteen and never looked back. For years now, Eames has been warping the ages of his conquests to match the number Arthur guesses is the truth. For laughs. To tease him about being so bloody wrong about something so obvious.

It’s the sodding first-name thing all over again. Does Arthur even know what a joke is? For ten years, they have been locked in a battle of rapier wit. Has Arthur misinterpreted all of it?

Only, Arthur isn’t wrong anymore is he?

That kid that paid for tricks flitters through Eames’ mind and makes his stomach hurt. That should never have happened. That was complete desperation, madness--a pathetic attempt to make Arthur regret leaving him behind. As if Arthur truly possesses the omniscient powers they pretend he has.

Eames kicks out of bed. In the hallway, he can see the moving light of the big screen TV, hear the sounds of intimate conversation drifting from the living room where Mac is on watch. Eames puts the domestic scene to his back and goes to Arthur’s room at the end of the hall. This is one of the unfinished rooms. The door doesn’t shut all the way, wedged a quarter of an inch into the crooked door frame. He doesn’t bother knocking, just forces his way through it.

Arthur bolts upright from the bed with a gun in hand. He takes his finger off the trigger when he sees Eames. “Jesus.”

“Sorry, mate.” Eames pushes the door back into the frame. Arthur turns a light on. He is shirtless, in black boxers. There is a pink salmon shirt in the crook of his arm. Eames stares at it. Arthur blushes and hides it under the blanket.

“Been looking for that.”

“Well you left it... when you quit.” Arthur says with this soft break that makes Eames shiver. The next moment, Arthur clears his throat and throws the shirt into his face as if it is nothing. “There. Probably needs a wash. Doesn’t even smell like you anymore.”

Eames sniffs it, finds that it smells of Arthur now. The pointman has a tight jaw, and he is pretending his attempt at a joke landed as one when they both know it is just a confession, raw and bleeding like all the other stuff Arthur has spewed today.

The idea that Arthur has been clinging to this shirt in his absence makes Eames feel one thousand times better for his own pathetic actions during the break up. “Want to talk to you,” he says to the carpet.

Arthur perks up. “Talk talk?”

“I never would have left if you had just told me the truth about Cobb instead of letting me believe the worst.”

“Me dating someone is the worst? Seriously?”

“Course it is!”

A hardness takes over Arthur’s face. “Look. I’m actually glad it happened the way it did. I learned something important about myself. I’m not going to live to please you, Eames. That’s bullshit. I’m going to do what I want to do. That means I’m going be friends with whoever I want, fuck whoever I want, and _say_ whatever I want. If you don’t like it, then I guess you’ll have to find some other kid to worship you.”

Eames sucks in a sharp breath. “Goddammit, Arthur. _That’s never what this was supposed to be_. I don’t know what the fuck happened, but somehow, this thing between us twisted itself into this dark corner and if we don’t straighten a few things out then I guess we are done.”

Arthur’s throat clicks. “What are you talking about?”

“I’m talking about how I’ve somehow completely lost touch with reality.”

The pointman stiffens. “Your totem--”

Eames produces the poker chip and flips it around. The correct secret of it is superbly calming. “I’m not talking dreams, love.”

“Oh,” Arthur sits back, a dimple sinking on his face at the pet name. Eames gulps. “You’re not too old. How can you ask me that? Do you really think I can only get it up for kids?”

“I don’t know...I guess I just needed a reason why you ignored me. But--you know, I, I get it now. Our dance.”

“A silly game. I’ve gotten lost in it. You and I have this nasty habit of embodying each other’s projections of one another. You have been living as my heartless dream-protegee and I have been living as your deviant mentor. Only, I’ve become that deviant, darling. I did something sick when I was away.”

“What happened?”

Eames relates how quickly he became so strapped for cash he turned tricks to eat and ended up with a client who all too real must have used his allowance to pay for it. Eames doesn’t share the unfortunate details of him calling the boy Arthur--no nerve.

Arthur listens to the story and rolls his bottom lip between his teeth. “That’s fucked up.”

“I know.” He drops his head below his shoulders. “Rock bottom.”

A long pause follows this before Arthur elbows him. “Hey. Thanks for telling me.”

That doesn’t feel like forgiveness. Eames gulps. Arthur scratches the back of his head. “So you really don’t have a thing for virgins?”

Eames swells. “I enjoy showing people new, exciting things. Men tentatively reaching outside of their hetero comfort zones. New dreamers looking to hook up with a forger wearing a celebrity’s face. The fun stuff. Not virgins _persay_. Fresh meat.”

Arthur pushes air through his nose in quiet laughter. “I get it.”

Sitting together in silence, Eames lets Arthur lean his shoulder against him as if they are on an overcrowded train. He contemplates the fresh meat thing.  Cobb. Aridane. Freddie Simmons. Arthur. They had all captured his special attention for being green to the world he thrived in.

“So I’m not too old. Just too experienced.”

Eames shakes his head. “No. Darling. No. That’s just the thing. Something about you, Arthur, that just doesn’t stop pulling me in. I can’t work it out. I don’t understand what it is. Maybe…” Eames can’t finish his thought out loud because it is too wonderful and extremely terrifying at the same time. _Maybe it’s because Arthur is still new to love._

With a laugh and a shake of his head, he plants a gentle kiss to Arthur’s forehead. “Whatever it is, I’m hooked. Goodnight, love.”

“Don’t go,” Arthur holds him by a fistful of t-shirt. “Stay in here. With me. Come on.”

Eames breathes heavy through his nose, kisses Arthur deeply and pulls away. “Another night, Arthur. I feel too dirty from the tricks.”

“Oh whatever. You’ve had tons of showers since then. Get over it.”

“No, really. Let me regroup. I need this, darling. Seriously.” His voice betrays his urgent desperation to be free. It isn’t about the immoral trick, it’s about being completely unprepared for the depth they’ve waded into here. Eames can’t swim in water or emotions.

A flicker of understanding expands Arthur’s pupils. He releases Eames with a crooked smile. “Okay. Later.”

They could be outside a seedy motel splitting ways to sleep in their own beds like usual. Eames is eternally grateful for Arthur understanding enough to adopt the casual tone of voice. He leaves the room feeling like he is on fire and drowning at the same time.

|    |    |    |    |

The grassy hills turn into steep wooded land. Esca loves the burn in his thighs as he hikes upwards, but the really really great thing is having his brother beside him. Grown they may be but a part of Esca has woken up and gets stronger every time he glanced over and sees Arty soaking up nature.

Arthur has borrowed Esca’s workout clothes. He doesn't appear to be sweating yet. The way he dominates the hiking trail as if it is a well paved bike path makes Esca regret his lack of commitment at the gym.

“Do you remember when we did this _everyday_ all day?”

Dimples popping, Arthur puffs.  “Yeah. God it feels good to be out here again.”

It is as if someone has an ear to the quietest, most secret voice inside of Esca. One he himself forgot to listen to. Trees. Sunshine. Dirt. Bugs. Sweat. Exercise. Fresh air. Wild life. These things are the marrow of the good life.

“I didn't realize how much I missed the outdoors.”

“It's like coming home.” Arthur states plainly.

The brother's glance at each other with identical grins. God, can it be any simpler than that? They spent every waking moment outside. It is more of a home than the house lost to ashes could ever be.

Tears spring to Esca’s eyes. He holds his breath and blinks them back, but by the time he gets to the top of the ridge he is severely winded. Arthur chuckles.

They stop at a skinny tree fallen into the fork of another one. Esca props against the smooth bark to catch his breath. Arthur circles, kicking at rocks and things. A snake shoot from beneath one. Mostly black, slim and fast.

Esca yells and jumps away from the snake. Arthur chases and catches it by the head impressively. His face looks so young as he stands back up with his prize. “Haha!”

Heart racing, Esca tries to remember all the stuff he used to know about serpents. He can't believe Arthur just _did that_ after a decade away from wilderness.

“You still have the touch of a druid in you.” Esca praises. Jealous. He has not even come close to living up to his own character like that.

Arthur lets the snake twist around his arm and flick its tongue a few times before he tosses it gently out of reach. It lands with a ropey flop and shoots away. Arthur chuckles again.

“Eames would've shit.”

Esca laughs. “So how are things with him?”

“Better. I guess. I don't know. He fucking caught me sleeping with his fucking _shirt_ last night. I think I'm freaking him out.”

“Maybe he needs to be freaked a little,” Esca says. Arthur snorts but he cuts back in, “no, I'm serious. People can get into a comfort zone and be really stubborn about leaving it.” His breathing thins as he considers how Marcus shoved him none too gently into uncharted waters. “He just needs time to find new footing. But don't stop!”

Arthur’s eyebrows lift. Esca nods. “Don't let up. Keep at him until he _gets it_. You are here for him. Not going anywhere. Not hurting him. It's trust issues that make him act like this. Believe me.”

 

::::::::

Days later, Marcus bites his lip to keep from grinning too much.

Esca isn't wearing contacts this morning and has on a large pair of frames that manage to make his ears look smaller. At first sight of them, Marcus’s heart pinches because it is just _too cute_. He kisses Esca good morning in a way he hopes conveys how excited he is to be shown this Lazy Day Esca. It is so intimate, no way Esca decided to wear the glasses lightly. Marcus wants to reward him for that kind of confidence.

They fool around a little bit in the dark corner next to the pantry. Esca gets a devious smirk on his lips and teases Marcus until he is hard and then grinds until star's explode in his vision. Pajama pants ruined. Lazy Day Esca is rosey faced and triumphant.

Marcus limps into the bathroom and cleans up. When he steps out two minutes later, it is to find the scene totally changed.

Eames has appeared, looking like he has food poisoning. He is collapsed against the marble counter, shaking. Esca is stroking his back in a brotherly fashion.

“What happened?” Marcus asks.

“I'm fucked up.”

“Well, yeah, but I thought you knew that already.” Marcus teases. Wrong thing to say. As soon as the words leave his mouth he knows the man is in the grips of a real Crisis.

Sobering up, he takes a seat on Eames other side. “Sorry. Just kidding. What happened?”

“Is Arthur.” Eames bemoans. Just the way he says the point man’s name hints at an endless devotion. Marcus glances at Esca, who heard it too.

“Tell us everything.”

Eames sighs and launches into it.

“He is trying so hard. I can see that. He wants us to be closer and it isn't that I don't want that but--I can't do it. He is opening up _so much_ and I don't feel--”

“You don't feel the same?” Esca asks sharply.

“ _Adequate_ ,” Eames corrects. He pushes on his eyelids.

“Dude,” Marcus says. “You are. Just, you have to let him in. I know it's scary but just do it. Which are you going to regret more: Telling him something no one else knows or losing your chance with him?”

 

Arthur is up a tree. Literally.

Following his little brother's advice, Arthur just spent the morning telling Eames all about his anarchy days, and not just bare facts that make him look impressive but the hot bed of pain that had led him to act that way. He gave Eames Orphan Arthur, and the man actually said No Thank You.

_Darling, I don't need the whole story. Let's talk about happy things, yeah?_

So now Arthur is here. Outside where it is safe.

He hasn't climbed a tree in like fifteen years but it is just like riding a bike. Now he is twenty five feet off the ground and looking out over Marcus Aquila’s property.

It is actually a sweet sniper position. If he had the right rifle, he could take out each and every one of them from here. So he sees Eames leave the house, search the grounds in an effective sweep, but he doesn't think to look upwards.

Arthur waits until he is close. Then he lowers carefully and jumps to the ground. He lands directly behind Eames, who whirls with his gun.

“Just me.” Arthur says.

“Jesus.”

“Sorry.”

Eames cranes back to look in the tree. “I used to climb trees too.”

Arthur falls back a half step. The nugget of information is pure gold. Baby Eames--a tree climber. Instantly Arthur's mind webs out to connect his childhood to Eames. Climbing trees, scraped knees, finding bird’s nest, meeting squirrels, falling maybe breaking a bone?

There are too many questions.

“Actually, sorry, no. No I didn't.” Eames looks worried.

Arthur's stomach pits. “Oh.”

“Dunno why I said that.”

“Tell me something true, goddammit.”

“My best friend growing up was a turtle.”

“What?”

Eames’ face softens. “I had a pet turtle--kept her for fifteen years. She was the sweetest thing.”

Arthur’s mind flickers over the countless turtle shells he had used for his pretend magic spells. His throat clicks with a dry swallow.

“I told her everything. Stuff like how my dad leaving felt. How mom's new boyfriend's treated me. How kids at school treated me. I was picked on, in primary school. So I changed into someone else. Someone they all adored. And I kept changing. And I still do. And I don’t know if I was ever truly someone other than the skinny boy who carried his turtle to school and sucked his thumb.”

Arthur can see it. All too clearly. A chubby baby called Art in a pink shirt, standing on the playground with a big turtle under one arm and a drool covered thumb stuck in his mouth, cruel kids laughing and pointing.

A soft gasp leaves Arthur lips. “Okay. Yeah--well” he holds up a palm to stop him. His heart is racing as if _he_ is the center of ridicule. His stomach hurts.

Eames slips his hands into both pants pockets and waits patiently for Arthur to process this. His Eames wasn't always untouchable. His Eames wasn't born as charming as a devil. His Eames had a true face beneath a thousand masks. A bullied little boy who likes turtles.

Sweet as it may be, the image seriously undercuts the Forger’s reputation.

Arthur studies him. He tries to do that thing with his eyes where he can shift perspective. See the pure little boy and then see the clever, devious Forger.

He can't.

Eames is different now. The air of mystery is gone. He came from somewhere, just like everyone else. He didn't just manifest from the ether. He wasn't actually Ariel, which meant he wasn't perfect. He had layers Arthur didn't know. Would never know. Because he didn't create Eames.

“Thanks for telling me, Eames.”

Eames nods. Arthur shuffles closer and kisses him. “You can run away now.”

His snaggletooth glints. “Thank you, darling.”

Eames heads straight back into the house. Arthur finds another tree to climb. He feels weird. He needs to _think_.

Isn't this what he wants? Why does he feel like he just swallowed the wrong pill? For over a decade now, the charming forger has been the pinnacle of mystery and seduction. He has been Ariel in the flesh.

And now he is just a man. A man who doesn't even know how to share his true self. Who doesn't know how to be anyone without a mirror to copy. He isn't perfect, he has just figured out how to pretend. Like Arthur.

Now he is trying to pull away the masks. He is copying Arthur again. And it is scaring the shit out of him.

Movement over at the house draws the point man’s eye. Esca has stepped outside. At the sight of him, Arthur monkeys back down to the ground to meet him.

“How high did you go?”

“To the top.”

Esca cranes back to check it out. His eyes are narrowed with suspicion but his cheeks are dimpled. “Is there anything you are afraid of?”

“Magic.” The word leaps straight out of Arthur so fast he doesn't even remember his tongue working. He blinks, stunned a little by the rawness one word can bring.

This pulls Esca’s carefree attention out of the green leafy treetops to their level. “What do you mean?”

They begin walking. He breathes deeply and lets it out. “I’m, like… starting to believe maybe the magic is the only reason I have Eames.”

Esca says nothing, and even looks a little concerned. Arthur tries again. “Okay, like… I _know_ I didn't create him out of thin air. I'm not insane. But, that big spell I did back when we were kids--"

“It worked.”

Arthur stops dead in his tracks. “And maybe that's the only reason Eames sticks around. I can see it in his fucking eyes he doesn't know why he needs me. He doesn't _want to_ want me. He's a fly in my web. Maybe I should just, you know… let him be free.”

Esca shakes his head before Arthur is more than two words in and doesn't stop until his turn to speak. “Bullshit. No. He isn't some poor trapped prey. He is your soulmate. And yes he is pissing terrified. We all are because no one is prepared for a soulmate.”

Arthur rolls his eyes. Esca strikes with the speed of a cobra, closing a vice like grip on Arthur’s bicep. “I’m serious, Arty. Soulmate. And I'm not basing that on how hot he is or how fucking _amazing_ the sex is or anything like that. I have mine and you have yours. Don't let him go.”

This draws a light snort from Arthur despite his best efforts. Esca smirks. “Think what our lives would have been if you stayed with me at Nana’s. You would have finished high school in London. She would have talked you into going to University and you would have gone and you would have studied languages. I would have followed you a few years later but dropped out and met the right people and started work on the PASIV right alongside a soldier called Arthur Eames. I mention I have a brother Art. You two meet. Maybe dating you helps him keep his head and he makes wiser choices. Or maybe the two of you run off with the PASIV and we end up right back on this spot. Either way, you and he connect.”

Arthur has stopped walking and leans against a tree. He likes this alternate reality Esca is painting. His hungry mind races into all the corners of the story. Then ravishes a slightly different one--one where their parents never died and he meets a sweating conman on the run, hiding in the mechanic shop where Arthur might have been working...or the countless other places he might have encountered such a devil in his life as professor of world languages.

Or-- what about this-- fat turtle boy Eames never became popular and went to college and got a PhD and they could have met in academic circles….

Huh.

Feeling infinitely better, Arthur gives his brother a thump to the shoulder and goes looking for Eames. Finds the man playing video games with Marcus.

“Want in?” Marcus asks. Either he has played this game enough times to be sick of it or he is just THAT kind at heart. Arthur smirks and doesn't spare him a glance. His eyes have been on Eames since he stepped inside the door.

Still the brutally mortal turtle boy. Or the devilishly handsome conman. Or the law abiding soldier. That’s what a real Ariel is: not necessarily a conman with a trundle of aliases but one soul who has been and will be and could have been an infinite amount of people made for Arthur's soul.

“I want a date.”

Marcus’ eyebrows lift. He nearly giggles but swallows the sound, tries (and fails) to play it cool. Eames loses control of his avatar, dies, drops the controller. Now Marcus is in an awkward position, unable to focus on the stalled game.

Eames saves him the trouble of getting up to give them privacy by directing Arthur into the next room. They go down the hall to where Arthur sleeps. A window has been left open so that the fresh outdoors teases them.

“Come on, Eames. I like you, you like me. The next move here is a date. Or do you want to stay in this dumb fucking limbo forever?”

“No! God no.”

Arthur grins. “Good. Then tonight. ….What can we even do out here?”

Eames flutters his lips for an answer. The city boy has no clue. Arthur will never say no to an outdoor adventure but knows better than to force Eames on one.

After a beat, the forger bumps his shoulder. “I dunno. Maybe we can just eat dinner alone together. And… talk?”

“Fuck that,” Arthur says. He has said way too much lately. There is only one thing he wants to do. So he does it.

He kisses Eames.

::::

  
At last, they are back to where they belong. Together, reading each other’s minds. Eames returns the kiss passionately because this is the Arthur he wants. Sharp and to the point, personal details held close to the vest. Even though he hasn’t been able to get their first kiss out of his mind for days, he’s been trying to adjust to this new side of his partner-in-crime. The moment Arthur had returned to the house he had steeled himself for a wrenching conversation ripe with personal details and feelings and mortification.

And then Arthur takes one look at him and gets down to the brass tacks.

God, _Arthur_.

They tumble. Eames, ready for anything, is still a little surprised to end up on top, looking down at the sly, dangerous man. He touches Arthur’s trouser-clad thigh as if to make sure that is what is wrapped so securely around him like a couple of pythons. His heart is thudding in his throat, and he dives into a kiss as if the game is to pass the thumping object from mouth to mouth like a party drinking game.

They grind. It feels good. It steals their breath. Eames has never rubbed himself off against someone who knows him so well, and he feels slightly self-conscious of the sounds he is making. Almost too distracted to realize Arthur is making the same noises.

Then the point man whimpers and shudders, and for a wild moment, the forger thinks nefarious Arthur has come in his trousers, but that is not the case—not just yet. Pale, then fingers dig into Eames’ shoulders, and Arthur grits out, “stop before I fucking—holy shit I’m shaking.”

He is, his fingers tremble as he rips at the fastenings on his own pants. Eames rises onto his knees to strip his own garments away, and once he has, he stays up there to enjoy the view of mostly naked Arthur sprawled below him, panting for it.

Maybe Eames is shaking, too, when Arthur’s unsettled hand takes his to guide it to the tent in the front of his shorts. Arthur’s cock is hard and hot through the fabric, and Eames’ palm is rubbed along it on its way to the waistline. The barest pause makes Eames glance up to see Arthur bite his lip—shy, holy fuck—and then, holy fuck.

Eames is caressing Arthur, skin to skin, and that is Eames shaking. He makes himself stop, and he focuses on doing what he does best. Then, he realizes something.

“Shit,” Eames breathes, moving his fingers in less of a pleasure-giving way and in more of a prodding, exploration way. With his other hand, he grabs the elastic waistband and yanks down the shorts to see with his own eyes. “Arthur—your balls—“

“What about them?”

“You’re missing one!” Eames says stupidly. Arthur does a convincing double-take, as if a man can misplace a nut without noticing. Then he gives Eames a sound little cuff to the ear, laughing with those dimples deep and distended, covering his face with glowing youth. “You don’t think I know that, dipshit?”

Eames laughs at himself, shaking his head to clear it of the little rattle from Arthur’s affectionate wallop. “Just making sure, darling. You know you can be too focused on work sometimes to notice important things.”

Their lips gravitate together as he speaks, so that Arthur’s answer is spoken against his mouth, “Fuck off. I’ll tell you about it later.”

Eames hums and they are kissing again. The flats of Arthur’s fingernails brush lightly up Eames’ face, and then scrape softly through his thick hair.

Arthur grips Eames under the ears and tips his head back so that his quick tongue can delve as deeply into Eames’ willing mouth as possible. Loud in the silence of the bedroom is the sound of their breaths hard in through their noses and there is a thin, high sound that might have come from Eames, but maybe Arthur; his thigh muscles shake under Eames’ palms, giving Eames the impression that as far gone into desire as he is, Arthur is even further. He has never seen Arthur like this before, shivering from something that’s not cold, moving like he’s out of control, even kind of needy.

This does things to the inside of the forger that he has never, ever felt before, an ache beyond just needing to get off; an ache that rolls through him head to toe and gives him goose pimples. He attempts to speak and only grunts into Arthur’s mouth.

Arthur, panting already from the miniscule friction he makes by bucking up into Eames, breaks away with a puff into Eames’ mouth, “Shit.”  His thighs tremble even more and he bucks frantically again, “Oh, shit. I--…” his movements stutter to a stop and he says, “I need a minute. Shit. Just… hold on…”He hasn’t come yet, his hot prick still presses incessantly into Eames’.

Eames grins, gives his thighs a squeeze, “Been awhile since you rubbed one off?”

“I just really, really want this,” Arthur rasps with a grin, “thought about it too much; I want it to last.”

It’s so freely honest that Eames is knocked back a figurative step and suddenly feels too out in the open for comfort. Sure, he wants and has wanted Arthur more than anyone else in his life, but he has not gone into this prepared to talk about any of that. Talking isn’t their style, not how they’ve done things for the past ten years.

He almost wants to tell Arthur to shut up or he’ll ruin it.

He can’t do that, though, because this is sex with Arthur, and sex with Arthur happening in any way at all is worth enduring anything for, even honest words that slice uncomfortably deep. But at least now he knows just what to do to blow darling Arthur’s mind and make both their dreams come true.

Taking control of the situation, Eames twists and throws Arthur back onto the bed, pins him there. Arthur’s chest is pumping rapidly now, and his body trembles, erection seeping a little, so the forger refrains from anything else for a moment until everything is back in order. Thirty seconds is all he’s willing to give.

But then the dark mud of Arthur’s eyes pulls Eames out of time, and he forgets to finish counting to thirty. Never in all of these years has Eames gotten the chance to look into these eyes at this proximity. He detects three different shades, the darkest part so rich and deep he feels like he can dip a brush in there and paint a streak across his cheek. Absently he trails the tip of a finger along the imaginary line.

“I can’t believe your given name is Arthur,” the point man says suddenly, face crinkling with humor under Eames’ finger. Those pale, slender hands smooth Eames’ beard, and perfectly spaced eyelashes veil those dark eyes. “It’s stupid. Now I can’t call you that.”

Eames gulps, and forces an easy smile, breaking eye contact at last. “I haven’t been Arthur for so long I wouldn’t want you to. It would feel like a con, wouldn’t it?” he lies.

Arthur lifts his head and kisses him, lifts a knee to hook their hips closer. Eames grabs that thigh and squeezes, pushes Arthur back into the pillows with the force of his return kiss. Their erections slide together, and it’s decided. Enough talking. He slicks his fingers generously and Arthur goes pliant, knees wide open, hands still warm on his face and neck.

Soon enough they are both sweating and gasping and swearing as their bodies collide. It’s enough; it’s everything Eames has ever imagined; his darling Arthur under him, soft and warm like he was occasionally in those earlier years, but also hard and cool like nowadays. In the heat of it, the forger feels like he can die happily now. He’s won the highest prize.

“Dammit--” Arthur bites back a louder shout and writhes beneath him, grunting obscenely, “unf, yeah, give it to me, come on, daddy,” he grits.

With a shout, Eames shoots hot and hard into Arthur, until his wanton sounds crest and break too. The point man comes in silence, spurting all over the both of them, covering Eames’ hand the most. Frenzy slows down outside his body, but inside Eames blood hammers in his ears, breaths thunder out of his face, and that last word is doing doughnuts in his head with its eyes closed. He chuckles.

“Shit that was good,” Arthur pants and laughs, high on it. Eames settles on his back and drags the back of his fist across his slick hairline as he agrees,  
“Particularly that last bit.”

Arthur lifts his eyes to Eames’ and his eyebrows lift inquiringly, betraying a hint of insecurity that stirs powerful things inside of the older man. “Yeah?”

“Oh, Arthur darling, fuck yes.”

Grinning so that his dimples sink in, he does not stay on his side of the bed, he lifts Eames’ arm and slides over to press against him, head on his shoulder so that Eames’ lips connect with his forehead. He sighs contentedly and settles in to sleep. Eames likes the feeling of Arthur sagging into him, curling close. He likes how the man fits in his arms, likes feeling his shoulders moving with each breath, his ribs expanding and retreating against Eames’ own…

Arthur is quite lost in these mild, pleasant thoughts for long enough that he’s nearly asleep when Eames hums and says, lowly into the silence cocooning them, “Darling.”

“Hm?”

Eames presses his lips to the top of Arthur’s head, and his finger brush lightly over the old scars on Arthur’s stomach. “Here’s a bit of your past I wouldn't mind hearing.”

Arthur sucks in a sharp breath. At length, he says, “It’s not a pretty story….”

Eames grunts.

Mouth dry, Arthur hardly knows where to begin so he says, “When I was sixteen, uh...Me and Esca got home from school and found our dad, um….well he had just murdered our mother and stabbed our baby brother…”

Eames sits up, face riddled with horror. “Jesus.”

Arthur can't look at him so he keeps his eyes trained on his fingernails and continues, “I got the baby away from him and made Esca run him next door to call the cops and I tried to talk to my dad but, ah--” pressing the palms of his hands into his eyes, he says roughly, “he’d been Sleeping for about six months and he,uh, he thought it was all a dream. He told me he loved me and stabbed himself in the heart.”

Eames gasps, hyperventilating. Arthur presses on, “There was just so much blood and my mom was lying there with her eyes still open, her throat slit. Her favorite string of pearls had been cut, and I slipped on one of them. And the _blood_ everywhere. I just. I couldn't believe it was real. Didn't want it to be. So I. So I...I pulled the dagger out of his chest and I tried to wake myself up too.”

“ _Fuck_ darling what the _...what the fuck_?”

“I told the paramedics that my dad did it before he stabbed himself. I was too embarrassed to tell the truth. Never told a soul until now.”

“And you kept dreaming? After something like that?”

“Had to. Any dream was better than reality.”

“Clearly.” Eames hangs his head, squinting. “So that’s the second sibling. And the lady in pearls what comes around when you’re caught off guard in a dream. And the dagger, too, that you’ve killed us Out with a hundred fucking times? Fuckin’ hell.” The forger drops his head to Arthur’s shoulder. “Knew I should have asked about your missing nut.”

“Oh that happened about three months after I got out of the hospital. I burned the house down and set fire to the family car. Wasn’t thinking about all the debris that would go flying when the gas tank exploded. Piece of the car caught me right in the sack.

Eames laughs like one does when there just isn't anything left to do. “And just how many other suicide attempts were there before we met?”

“Planned or accidental?”

“Jesus, Arthur.”

“It’s weird but, like, killing that guy who was chasing you, that’s what woke me up. That was the kick.”

“And then I showed off my precious PASIV like a wanker.”

“I’m glad you did,” Arthur assures. “You gave me something to live for when you made me get clean before I could use it. You totally saved me from all of it.”

Eames’ plush lips tilt in a melancholy smile. “And I damned myself in the process. Denied myself you until you were clean and then we just couldn't stop the dance, could we?”

Arthur chuckles, eyelids heavy. “It was fun, for the most part….”

 

 

In the living room, Esca and Marcus can not help overhearing the sex. Enough of it comes through the walls to make them both a little pink around the ears.

“Good for them.” Marcus says.

Esca scoffs. “If it wasn't my brother then it'd turn me on.”

Marcus sighs. “So I guess that's my job tonight. Let’s show them how it's done.”

Hot around the ears, Esca leads his man to their room for a new level of sibling rivalry. The sex starts off acrobatic, but the look in Marcus’ eyes makes Esca slow down and enjoy it a different way.

Money is useful to have, but _this_ is the real fortune. Love. And this here is a true love between two souls sewn to match each other. When he considers how their paths were laid down to cross each other, it humbles him and he can't breathe.

Marcus caresses his jaw and kisses him. They share air and shake to pieces together and it isn't the loud climax they had aimed for but it is a deep one that slices through, letting heaven’s light bleed inside.

“I love you sooooo much.”

The words are still heavy on Escas tongue but at least now he isn't afraid to say it back. “I love you too.”

Noise elbows into the blissful moment. A disturbance down the hall--voices, a slammed door, a scream of agony.

Marcus’ eyes fly wide.

“The hell--?”

 

The scream of pain withers but the shouting continues. Esca recognizes the second scream--Arthur is shouting in fear. He throws on a robe and races to investigate. Due to the alarm of the moment, Marcus manages to move quite quickly. Esca’s worry doubles. Marcus will feel that tomorrow. But the bigger concern is finding out what is happening to his brother.

Esca kicks in the wedged door. Inside the room, the rumpled bed tells what the earlier thumps and moans had said: sex happened. But it is empty now. Both men are in the bathroom door. Butt naked. Eames has a hand to his face, a riverlet of crimson gushing through his fingers and running to his elbow.

Arthur has a bloody pair of scissors in his hand and complete terror in his eyes.

“JESUS!” Marcus shouts.

“Arthur!” Esca’s lungs constrict. The smell of blood puts bile in his mouth and the flashbacks make his skin flash cold. He stumbles back a few steps, heart racing. “Wh-what are you fucking _doing_?”

He throws the scissors away, disgusted.

“It's ol’ right ---calm down--’m fine!” Eames is saying in a voice shredded with pain. Arthur shouts over him, “SHIT I DIDN'T MEAN TOO! EAMES? I'M SO FUCKING SORRY--”

And really that is the only reason Esca doesn't bolt for the front door to call the police from next door again. Arthur isn't Dad. But it's still too fucking close for comfort.

“Arty what happened?”

“Nothing--”

“It was just--”

Arthur and Eames both start talking. But Marcus starts dressing the wound on the forger’s face, and he is forced to stop, so Arthur continues,

“I had a bad dream. I ran in here to calm down. He surprised me, I reacted on instinct. Eames, believe me--i didn't mean to.”

“I know, love. I know.” Eames says softly. He hisses because Marcus has pressed a washcloth to the gash. “I think you need stitches."

“Shit.” Arthur paces away with his hands in his hair and mutters more profanity. After a few more seconds, everyone in the room realizes the man is spiraling. His voice grows strained, his breathing alters and he looks Lost. His eyes are unfocused like a panicked wild animal’s.

“Darling--hang on, 'um fine, mate--darling!” He goes to Arthur who is bent nearly double. He hesitates before touching him. When he does, Arthur jumps, struggles but Eames gets a fast hold on him. They stumble into the wall and slide to the floor. Arthur’s harsh sob rents the air, jarring Esca.

What is happening to his brother? It leaves the billionaire feeling thirteen and helpless all over again. Marcus shoots him this desperately supportive look but doesn't cease his first aid. He goes to Eames’ side and prepares to do a controlled fall to the floor, jarring Esca one more time.

_He will be bedridden tomorrow with that hip if he isn't careful._

This gives Esca the power to move into action. He leaps to take the bandage from him. “Baby, let me.”

Marcus glances at him and looks relieved, not for getting help but for seeing Esca unstuck from the past. He nods and hands the kit over.

Eames rocks Arthur while Esca doctors the cut and Marcus puts a blanket over both of them to make them decent.

 

No one talks. Arthur battles with himself as he sits crumpled pathetically in Eames’ arms. It was that mother fucking dream again. Killing Eames, enjoying the blood. Those were supposed to stop after getting real life sex. That was why he had picked up the scissors. “I was going to kill myself so I wouldn't hurt you and then I fucking did anyway--”

His voice is ragged and frail but loud in the dead silence of the room. Eames arms tighten around him. “Christ, darling. It was an accident. I'm okay. You're okay.”

Esca swears under his breath. “You need help.”

“I know.”

“Hang on,” Eames sounds offended. “Darling, just hang on. You're fine--”

“ _No._ He isn't. Eames, we've seen this before and right now you are acting like Sybil MacCunoval.”

“Who?”

“Mom.” Arthur says softly. “She wouldn't admit he was sick for a long time.”

Eames’ breath reverses. He turns pale and his arms tighten even more. “Can't be true, darling. Can't be…”

“But what if I am? You have to kill me before I hurt any of you. _Please._ ”

Arthur's eyes sting and he clenches them closed, blocks out the world and this horrible thing that is happening. He is sick. That's what is happening. He can't love like a normal person.

Figures.

His head sinks down to Eames' chest and he can feel the rapid rise and fall of his breathing, the rumble of his voice--and a steady beat.

Esca finishes taping the gauze to his face. “Look, I know it's ugly and scary but it's a fact of life. He needs psychological help.”

“You are locking him up over my dead body, mate.”

Arthur doesn't even hear the full argument. That steady beat, fast but consistent, is grounding him. That is a new totem. He comes out of the storm. Things become clear.

His kill Eames dreams are about feeling devotion wash over him.

And he can. Just like this. The tattoo of a devoted heart, full and strong and fighting for him. That washes over him the same as blood does in the dreams.

“Darling, what do you think?”

Arthur gulps. “I I don't know.. Ifeel better now. I--i think it was just a panic attack.”

“See?”

Esca pushes air through his nose. “You can have two problems.”

Arthur chuckles. “I'm getting help but more out of caution. I mean, I have issues but it's not like Dad. I can be sorted out….hopefully…”

Eames kisses the crown of his head. “I told you. I know this beautiful mind. I've lived in it for years. You're stable as anything.”

“I want to clean out my closets. Not taking any fucking chances. Not with you. Not putting him through it again either.” He meets Esca’s eye, sees the moisture of tears which the man blinks away with a grateful little smirk.

Arthur heaves a deep breath. “Shit. What a fucking day, huh?”

“It isn't over yet.” Marcus says, looking at his phone. "Now we know what Tom and Kristin have been up to."

 

He had been in the process of googling the best psychologist money good buy when an alert came in. Dream Share related world breaking news. “Guys, Serkis was just arrested on suspicion of illegal dreaming and he is naming both of you--pictures and everything.”

“ _What?_ ” Esca springs to his feet, first aid supplies scattering. He snatches the phone from Marcus but then sits on his good knee so they can both watch the footage.

Arthur and Eames get out of the floor. Arthur dresses. Eames cleans up in the bathroom and examines his face. Neither one of them seem at all bothered by the news. Marcus doesn't get it.

“No worries, pets. I have it _all_ sorted.” Eames purrs, back to his normal self as if that bloody scene never happened. Dreamers. Maybe they both need to talk to a doctor a few times a week.

“Yeah. We’re not fucking morons. Serkis has been setting us up as fall guys for years now. We have it under control.”

“How?”

“What did you think I have been working on this whole time? Papers. Law is nothing but paperwork. I’ve had shiney aliases for us since the beginning, ready to use when the fun stops-- _but_ Arthur’s new and exciting connection to you, Mac, made me have to tweak it all just a bit. Now it's an even better retirement plan. Sort of glad this has finally happened so we can use them.”

“But what does this mean? You will have to disappear completely, right? I mean, will we ever see you again?”

“Oh, but that is the beauty of it--we won't have to.”

“In fact,” Arthur pushes the knot of his tie into place, becoming that pristine badass who met Esca in the parking garage. “We are going to turn ourselves in.”

 

**Epilogue: Easy**

 

They give damning evidence on Serkis.

As testament to Eames’ skill at acting, the crooked SDRA agent had swallowed the fool persona hook line and sinker so that over the years Serkis became careless of what information he allowed Eames to learn, and the forger had collected a patchwork of proof that the agent was running the black market on PASIVs and serums.

It is enough to take the man down. That has always been their plan--to ensure that they bring the snake down with them. But now the new papers enable them to stay standing.

According to Eames' work, Cal MacCunoval has been a sworn agent in the SDRA in the deepest under cover position in the entire force.

It isn't a fast fix. It takes years and the best lawyers money can afford, but in the end the public knows this much:

The infamous Arthur and Eames were sworn in by Agent Hiddleston almost ten years ago. They tell CNN that they had been originally working for BWS as a mole before Tom recruited their skills for the SDRA…

Like all billionaires, Mac’s friends avoid jail.

They are instead fined bigtime for corporate espionage of the grossest level, but of course Mac can afford that.

It sinks the company, though.

“Esc. No. You don't have to do this. It's your life’s work. You just got through all that mess with Cobb.”

“Which is part of why I'm doing it. Blue Warshields is forever tainted. This way I avoid the hassle of changing public opinion, and, more importantly, I am saving a brother because, this time, I can.”

Arthur grips Esca’s shoulder and then crushes him to his chest. The two brothers hug fiercely for several seconds before pulling themselves together.

“Love you, man.”

Esca grunts in return. Arthur smirks, elbows him, and goes to Eames’ side. He is standing with Marcus away from the lawyers. The two former soldiers lean on the stone pillar of the courthouse, squinting into the bright sunlight.

Arthur dimples. “That was easy.”

The forger barks with laughter. “Ha! Now what, darling? I'm going to miss dreaming.”

Arthur shrugs. Marcus clacks his cane on the ground.

“As far as I am concerned, all three of you can work in my PASIV testing lab, which includes training all employees. Still dream if you want.”

Esca smiles. “Well, the work will be nothing compared to what I’m used to--”

“Too right.” Eames huffs.

“But that work kept me from having any kind of real life. I have a family now. That's my focus.”

Esca gives Marcus a shy look and then focuses on the apps on his phone. Marcus looks to Arthur for a subject change. He shakes his head.

“Hey, all I have ever needed was this guy at my side, a cup of coffee, and a bed to screw in.”

Sensibilities stepped on, Esca huffs. Marcus throws his head back and howls. Eames growls and dips him in a kiss. Marcus, Esca, Tom and the lawyers clap and whistle. Arthur has that feeling again where his life is epic.

His cell phone rings.

Eames stands him back up and releases his lips. Breathless, Arthur answers, expecting it to be Cobb or Nana.

“I am beginning to see why you never called me back, agent MacCunoval.”

His shoes scrape on the stone steps and he hisses. “Saito!”

The joking merriment of the group evaporates in a flash. They all step closer to listen. Arthur licks his lips and remains calm on the outside. “I have had a lot on my plate. Taking down a crooked agent isn't easy.”

He gives his family a look to assure them that he has control. “I assume this call is to settle some anxieties.”

Saito's chuckle is warm. “You will write up an honest report, to be sure, but I am curious of the price it will take for my name to fall through the cracks?”

Arthur uses silence.

Saito eventually speaks again. “A successful Inception is a groundbreaking scientific achievement that will force the SDRA to write even more laws to protect the public. Will you really cause such a stir with so little evidence to sustain the claim? And of course, our second arrangement was never brought to fruit, so really--”

“Here is the deal, Mr. Saito. From this day forward, I have a new life. The past is behind me. If you don't open that door, I won't either. Me and my family don't know you, and you don't know us.”

“Deal.”

The call ends.

Arthur pockets the cell with a smirk. “Easy.”

His brothers clap him on the shoulder. Eames gives him a devilish wink that promises rewards later in bed. It reminds him of their next appointment.

“And you know what else is easy?”

Eames' shoulders sag. “Oh no.”

“She is the most brilliant psychologist in the world, you have to trust her, Eames. For me. It helps my process. Come on.”

He groans. “First a bloody heart-healthy diet and now this. It’s the worst day of the week.”

“Yeah, but it's always the best _night_ right?”

This puts a spark in Eames’ eyes and he lengthens his stride to the car. The faster they get to their appointments, the sooner Arthur's award system kicks in. Tucked safely inside his pocket is a stethoscope. He carries it everywhere these days, on doctor recommendation, for when his troubles start to pile on. Like an emergency inhaler or an EpiPen, Arthur can ask Eames for a listen and let that heartbeat ground him again.

But mostly they use it for sex. Nothing makes Arthur harder faster than hearing how their love moves Eames on the inside. How kisses and whispers and touches can change the tempo.

 

As they drive off, Esca tucks himself under Marcus' chin and holds on. Just now, on his phone, he has signed away every cent to his name. He feels this ringing loss and the world is a little tipsy. “I'm poor.”

Marcus chuckles. “Everything I own is yours. If you marry me.”

Esca hiccups. “Okay.”

That's it. A marriage proposal. An acceptance. So easy. They kiss until the limo shows up. Esca slides in first, collecting ideas of what can go down behind tinted glass.

“...so when you talked about family being your focus…” Marcus says as he settles in.  Esca beams at him. “It means I want babies. Lots of babies from all over the world.”

Marcus beams too. “Okay.”

Again. So easy. The ringing loss goes away and the world stabilizes.

This is love.

//////////////

Fin.

/////////////

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It is finished! After (at least) six years we finally got there. Hope you enjoyed it.
> 
> THANK YOU FROM THE BOTTOM OF OUR HEARTS for sticking with us and waiting patiently and leaving encouraging comments.
> 
> This is for you ❤️


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